History

Three generations of X-ray engineers

The EFG company was founded in 1961 by the X-ray engineer Arthur Bradaczek and his son Hans Bradaczek. While Arthur Bradaczek started his X-ray work in 1922 at the Siemens Company in Berlin in the department for the development of medical X-ray apparatus, Hans Bradaczek got his early X-ray experiences at Siemens in Erlangen where he designed a dosimeter for the  Betatron. Later on in Berlin (1958) being a medical physicist he developed devices for the isodosis measurement at one of the first Cobalt radiation Gammatron units. For this work he won the Röntgen-prize which was connected with a visit to Canada and USA.In 1959 Hans Bradaczek started his thesis work in physics at the Fritz-Haber-Institute of the Max-Planck Gesellschaft in Berlin (the Director then was Max von Laue) and got his doctor degree in 1966. During this time he developed furthermore a high stabilized X-ray generator which led to a patent and was finally distributed by Seifert Cie. EFG then became Seifert’s agency in West-Berlin.
Three years later Hans Bradaczek became Professor of Crystallography at the Freie Universität in West-Berlin and was director there for 10 years.  During that time he stayed for a period at the nuclear reactor of MIT Cambridge as a guest of Clifford Shull, a later Nobel prize winner in physics.
In its earliest years the EFG Company began to work with a only few employees. Several new electronic devices had been developed:

• 1969 the world wide first X-ray detecting and counting unit on the basis of integrated circuits, named COUNTIX 130. Several variations followed.
  
  
• One of the first PC’s, based on a microprocessor was developed,
  which could be used for external process control as well.
  The name was CAT (Computer and Terminal).
  
  
• The experiences with the CAT led finally  to the development of a CNC-unit
  (on microprocessor basis), which was mainly used to control complex X-ray apparatuses. This CNC unit was used for many years as a controller of different  instruments, as well.
  
  
• One of the largest designs was a 13 axis X-ray goniometer (300x300x350 cm3)
  for the stress analysis of aircraft turbines, developed 1985 for MTU München.

In the following years a lot of customer designed instruments were constructed. These ranged from small angle scattering cameras up to huge Euler cradles.
Although the development of new machines was very exciting, the financial success started with the X-ray quartz sorting machines, which are meanwhile distributed all over the world in about 200 units.
The quartz slices (blanks) used for quartz oscillators need a high accuracy of the cutting angle between surface and a special lattice plane, otherwise the thermal dependence of the frequency leads to non usable oscillators. Accuracy is in the range of 1’’ (arc sec) cannot be guarantied in the production process. With a laser controlled X-ray measurement (Omega Scan) the angular distribution can be checked and the blanks can be sorted accordingly. Using the X-ray quartz sorting machine the loss in the oscillator production could be reduced significantly.
In the last years new fields of X-ray machines became of interest. The “cold light“ (semiconductor lamps) on the basis of sapphire or SiC wafers need similar to the quartz slices an exact orientation of the cutting angle. The crystals, called ingots, grown by a melting process, have to be stacked for cutting. To get an exact orientation of all the stacking parts, each of them has to be orientated before gluing to a steel holder.
For that purpose an X-ray stacking control machine was developed, which allows handling ingots up to 150 mm and a diameter of 4 inch to a 300 mm stack.
All orientation checking machines, for quartz, sapphire and arbitrary other crystal types are based on the Omega scan, which uses for the measurement a 360° turn under X-ray and laser beam measurement.
One of the last developments was a high precision X-ray reflectometer for the Nuclear Reactor Munich, to be used for the  comparison of neutron- and X-ray measurements.
During all these years EFG grew up to be a world wide supplier of X-ray equipment. EFG took over the agency of RIGAKU, Japan in central Europe and RIGAKU became the agent of EFG in Japan. An EFG-office in Shenzhen, China was established. In the meantime the EFG factory in the Düppelstraße became to be too small and a new plant of 2000 square meters was built at Beeskowdamm.
The third generation, Hans-Arthur Bradaczek, got his doctor degree at the Technische Universität Berlin, and became a President of EFG as well.
Hans Bradaczek was elected as a member of the Russian and of the Armenian Academy of Natural Science. He was honoured with  the title doctor honoris causa in St.Petersburg and in Moldavia and a new detected mineral got the name “Bradaczekite“.

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Ing. Arthur Bradaczek (1926) at Siemens, Berlin,

in the department medical X-ray apparatuses.

Hans Bradaczek, 1955, at Siemens Erlangen, at the Betatron, the first electron ring accelerator.

Hans Bradaczek, 1990, Mauritius, introducing
staff into the use of a quartz sorting machine.

Hans-Arthur Bradaczek, 2004, Berlin