York Probe Sources is leading the way in cutting-edge microscope technology thanks to support from City of York Council and the York and North Yorkshire Growth Hub.
The Poppleton-based business makes parts for powerful electron microscopes, which use electron beams to generate high-resolution images of samples as small as viruses and nanofibres.
Since 2023, YPS Director Omar El-Gomati and his team have been supported by the council’s Business Growth Manager, Louise Saw, who has provided the business with advice on their next steps to growth – including taking on more staff and expanding into new premises – and helped them access finance and training.
Louise referred YPS to Mike Pennington, a Business Relationship Manager at the York and North Yorkshire Growth Hub, who helped the business secure £20,000 in grant funding from the national Made Smarter scheme to scale up their business. The grant covered half of the cost of a new machine to automate making field emitters – the part of the microscope which produces and emits a beam of electrons. Until now, this process had been undertaken by older machines in a slow and delicate process which could only produce one unit at a time and which had a high failure rate.
Investing in the new machine has made the manufacturing process more productive and efficient, by allowing multiple units to be produced simultaneously whilst helping to reduce costly waste.
