Welcome to Grayfield Optical Inc.
Kurt Olbrich
Nov. 10, 1934 - Jan. 5, 2022
With great sorrow, we are sad to announce that the inventor of the Ergonom series of microscopes, Kurt Olbrich, passed away on January 5th, 2022 at the age of 87. He passed away peacefully in his sleep at 2:00 am. As sad as it is for us, it was probably the best thing for him, his health was getting worse and worse.
Perspective was his trademark - in two respects: Kurt Olbrich, with his Institute for Interdisciplinary Basic Research, relied not only on his intellectual abilities, but also on an optical device – a special microscope, which he invented himself to be able to do the material analysis he needed, that was not possible with conventional microscopes.
"You should not say, you can't do it,
You should only say, I can't do it yet."
This guiding principle has not only determined Olbrich's work, but also his professional career, a career that can hardly be found anywhere else, today. As a young, displaced person from the Sudetenland (now part of Czechoslovakia), he learned model and tool making, advancing to master craftsman at the age of 23. With this qualification, he entered plastics technology, which was still in its infancy at the time. For a good 20 years he worked for Hoechst, working in this rapidly developing field, which meant constant further training, where he rose to become head of their research department.
He was recognized at the time as Germany's top expert for plastics and his expertise led to a lot of inventions. For example, he designed bottle-banks for recycling bottles, that were able to reduce both breakage and noise. The basis of this design can be seen on the streets throughout Europe. He advised NASA on how to make a workable heatshield for the Apollo missions. Instead of building a really thick and heavy shield, his concept was to use a special material that burned away, thereby taking the heat with it, that was lighter and more effective. He was well known for his material-analysis and ability to solve problems, others could not.
In 1972, he decided to setup his own business "overnight." He was well known for his material-analysis and ability to solve problems, others could not. He often said that the best ideas always came to him in the middle of the night, as if someone was giving them to him. He kept a small office next to his bedroom so that he could quickly get up and note down these ideas, as otherwise they would be forgotten in the morning.
For good material analysis, you need good microscopes, and he was dissatisfied with the resolution of the microscopes that were commercially available. As a multi-faceted engineer, he decided to try and work out how to solve the optical limitations, himself. He deliberately avoided looking at the conventional optical theory, as he knew that was not good enough and he did not want to cloud his mind. It took him three months to work out his own optical theory that only worked when he combined three separate developments: High resolution, extreme variable depth-of-field and full color contrast, which is similar to phase contrast without the limitations in resolution. He named this system "Grayfield" using the Olbrich Lens System (OLS), as opposed to the well-known "Brightfield" and "Darkfield" contrast methods, where his system gives a full-contrast color image in natural colors using a specially filtered white light source and without the need for staining or oil-immersion that allowed long-term observations of living cells under the microscope as there were no heat issues or toxic chemicals involved in the process. That is why we named our company, Grayfield Optical.
While existing optical theory (Abbe) limits resolution to a hard limit of 220 nanometers with a very poor contrast (effectively 500 nm), his system could theoretically resolve down to 10nm (effectively <100nm) with full color contrast and white light, although the costs to reach 10nm resolution would have been astronomical and has never been done in practice. After two years of building various prototypes, he was able to produce the first optical microscope capable of clearly resolving 100nm in 1976, using white light, yet without the need for oil immersion and using a specially filtered white light source that did not heat the subject more than 2°C and did not damage live biological cells. Ideal for finding material issues in metals and plastics, yet also ideal for living cells. Kurt did not start looking at biological cells until he teamed up with Bernhard Muschlien resulting in several videos being released from 1991. In 1992, an outbreak of Legionnaires Disease in Austria led to samples being sent to Kurt Olbrich to see if he could find an answer. By examining the effects of the medication under the microscope, he was able to give new recommendations as to dosage that saved a lot of lives. This ability to observe the effects of medication on disease was then further perfected at the University of London after they acquired one of Kurt's microscopes.
The Ergonom series of microscopes, as Kurt Olbrich called his inventions, clearly surpasses the magnification of a conventional light microscope, without sharing the disadvantages of the much more powerful electron microscope. They are characterized by the fact that it enables the observation of living objects - with a true magnification of up to 42,000 times, a high degree of resolution <100nm and an extreme depth of field.
It is precisely this combination that the doctrine has hitherto described as physically impossible, yet Kurt has proved the opposite in practice. He did once try to offer his technology to the major microscope manufacturers, but they instead tried to rip him off, which resulted in him refusing to reveal the working principle to them. Kurt told me what happened when the top microscope engineer of a major Japanese company paid him a visit, to test his microscopes. Their engineer admitted that Kurt's microscopes were miles ahead of what they could achieve, and they asked if they could discuss in private. Kurt left the room, leaving some design plans on the table and made sure he was out of the room long enough so that they could find and photograph those plans. He later learned through insiders that that company had spent millions trying to build something out of those bogus plans he had drawn up. They were good enough to be credible yet led them totally in the wrong direction. As they had taken them without permission, they could hardly blame Kurt...
That was typical of Kurt's sense of humor. Another German company was proud of their latest confocal microscope and made the mistake of challenging Kurt to get a better image. Kurt first sent them back an image that had normal depth of field and was only slightly better than their image. Their confocal image had taken hours to make, while Kurt's image was just a matter of putting the slide on the stage, making the appropriate settings, and taking a photograph in real time. After they thanked him for the image, he then "apologized" that he had sent the wrong image and then sent another one with full depth-of-field. They were shocked and asked him not to publish the images. You can see them here; we are just not giving the name of the company involved....
Kurt had a reputation of being able to solve problems, others were unable to and received a lot of orders from scientific institutes and well-known companies in a wide range of industries, from metal and plastics to pharmaceuticals and medicine. For example, he was also involved in AIDS and cancer research. "Most research departments think exclusively in subject-specific terms. What they lack is flexibility vis-à-vis other disciplines," says Kurt Olbrich. His range of services started with error analysis, with subsequent optimization, but also included the development and testing of the innovation, as well as other threads such as prior market analysis and possible attempts to change the market altogether. Kurt has been awarded several worldwide patents of his own.
Back in 2002, Peter Walker was investigating the history of unusual microscopes in Germany and kept being told to look at Kurt Olbrich's microscopes. After the third such suggestion, he called him and made an appointment. "I was blown away with what Kurt Olbrich had achieved and noticed that as he could not speak English, he was virtually unknown outside German speaking countries. He was also suffering the problem that many people did not believe his microscopes were possible. Abbe's Limit specified it was not possible to resolve optically below 220nm." Kurt had refused to look at Abbe's work while developing his optical system. When he finally did look at it, he smiled and said, “it is a good job I didn't, because I would have been drawn in the wrong direction and would never have found the real answer.” He added that his method does not even break the Abbe limit, it just makes use of circumstances where that limit does not even apply. Circumstances that Abbe, and those that follow that theory, would not even consider.
As Peter (who is British), is also fluent in German, he obtained permission to setup a company to market Kurt's microscopes to the rest of the world in English. That was the birth of Grayfield Optical, Inc. that was co-founded by Peter and his brother Ray Walker (based in the USA) in September 2003. Over the years, Peter maintained a good relationship with Kurt Olbrich, bringing many scientists, researchers and even a Noble prize-winning scientist to observe and test the microscope, with Peter working as translator during each visit. "I got to know a lot about Kurt's way of thinking and soon knew all his stories by heart." When Kurt retired at the age of 80 in 2014, Peter started working with Kurt's engineer and business partner to redesign and develop a new series of microscopes that used Kurt's excellent optical technology and combine it with the latest electronics, using CAD/CAM systems to further optimize the system and reduce the unit costs. It took until mid-2020 to complete the development and by then, a new "pandemic" stopped the release in its tracks. This delay, along with associated financial losses, was further compounded by important suppliers disappearing and funding drying up. After a lot of work in the background. new suppliers have been found and we are in the process of obtaining new funding at the start of 2022 that will finally allow us to release the SeeNano series of microscopes to the world.
We are heartbroken that Kurt Olbrich has now left this world, yet that has left us even more determined than ever to make sure his invention finally achieves the recognition and sales that they have truly deserved.
Thank-you, Kurt Olbrich, for all that you have achieved. We have now taken the reigns to make sure that the world never forgets the name: “Kurt Olbrich.”
SeeNano optical microscopes: White light source, no oil immersion, variable extended depth-of-field, color contrast.
Extreme True Optical Resolution
100nm true optical resolution possible in real time
Enhanced Depth of Field
Up to 40-80x optically
Natural Color Contrast
Full color contrast images
No Staining, etc. Required
View unstained living samples
View Living Samples in Real Time
View living biological samples and view or film them in real time
Important News: Release of our Microscope Systems
Update: May, 2025
Manufacturing Status - We are optimizing the designs and busy applying for new funding. We now plan to start delivering microscopes in Q3, 2025.
We were nearly ready to release our new SeeNano series of microscopes in March 2020, when the Covid Pandemic happened, just when we were preparing to release our new microscope series. Some of our suppliers closed down and went out of business during this period, stopping any release. We were forced to look for new suppliers in the Hamburg area, capable of manufacturing to our exacting standards. This has now happened. Unfortunately, our existing funding dried up and we also had to look for new funding which has delayed the release of our microscopes. We are expecting new funding to become available in summer 2025 enabling us to restart our manufacturing in Fall 2025.
We have upgraded Kurt Olbrich's microscopes with state of the art electronics, computerized stages, automated scanning and much more in an improved modular system.
We know there are a lot of people waiting patiently for these new microscopes and we are working hard to make them available, this year - most likely in Q3, 2025.
Grayfield Optical was originally responsible for sales and marketing of Kurt Olbrich's "Ergonom" microscopes outside the German speaking countries. After the passing of the original inventor, Kurt Olbrich, we have expanded our coverage to German speaking countries as well, and have released our German language website: https://grayfieldoptical.de
We will keep you updated on our progress on this page.
Manufacturing Status - We are optimizing the designs and busy applying for new funding. We now plan to start delivering microscopes in Q3, 2025.
- We are working with Kurt Olbrich's engineer and the development of our microscope systems is practically complete.
- The certification process is ongoing, delayed due to closure of certification institute during the Covid-19 pandemic.
- We use engineering companies that supply the German Aerospace Industry to manufacture key-components on demand. Of the three major companies we use, two have now resumed their activities, the third one has not so we have looked for and found an alternative supplier. If anything, the new supplier is better as they can manufacture components out of a solid block of aluminium on demand from our electronic CAD designs, without tooling costs. While each component made costs more, this is offset by the lack of tooling costs resulting in a lower overall cost to us. We are also testing an alternative supplier for optics as Nikon can no longer supply the high quality custom optics we need.
- We welcome offers from other companies to work with us on joint ventures to help us get us started and to help with the marketing of our unique microscopes.
- This project has been hampered by multiple delays for various reasons including the retirement and recent passing of the original inventor - Kurt Olbrich - and numerous challenges in the redesign and updating of our microscopes to make them state-of-the-art.
- We are now working hard with the new supplier and testing new optics now as we pledge to maintain the highest quality to maintain the <100 nm optical resolution as before using a white light source. Demonstrations will soon be possible at our production facility in Norderstedt, near Hamburg, Germany (close to Hamburg airport).
- Contact us to arrange a demonstration of our microscope systems by using the form below to apply for an appointment.
- As we have a number of pre-orders that we will be suppling first, new orders made now go onto a waiting list as we ramp up production. The more pre-orders, the faster we can get out production up to speed.
- Please note that our US contact number has now changed to (267) 949-4033.
Nominal Charge of $400 (£300 or 350 Euro) for demonstrations at our Hamburg Facilities.
Please note that we are a small company and need to charge a nominal (offsettable) charge of $400 (£300 or 350 €) payable in advance to each group, to cover our own costs (hotel, travel costs, setting up equipment for specific demonstrations, etc). It is payable, once we agree on an appointment date.
This fee does include collection and return to Hamburg airport/rail station/hotel in the Hamburg area, etc. Our manufacturing facilities are located north of Hamburg (Germany) near the airport in Norderstedt. This fee will be fully offset from your invoice, should you purchase a microscope system from us. This fee has to be paid in advance and is otherwise only refundable if you cancel your visit at least three days prior to your appointment.
In the past, we had a lot of people making appointments to come and test our optical microscopes that were simply curious and had no real interest or even funding for purchasing our equipment. While we understand that our microscopes are unique and that many people want to see this for themselves, such visitors have incurrred high costs to us both financially and timewise in the past. As our team is located in both Hamburg and Cologne, we incur travel and hotel costs ourselves with each visit and these costs have to be recovered in the end through higher prices to our legitimate customers, which made our microscopes unnecessarily expensive.
As the price of our microscope systems has always been an important issue, we have been working hard in the past three years to redesign our systems to make them better and more affordable while maintaining the quality. It therefore made sense to introduce this nominal charge in order to cover our costs for each potential customer. We thank you for your understanding.
Updated Technology
Our previous range of Ergonom microscopes, were high quality optical microscopes, yet were lacking the integration with modern electronics. Our engineers in Hamburg, have been creative in integrating the latest electronics to intelligently control both the stage and the objectives allowing for fully computer-controlled operation. For non-biological applications, it is possible to auto-scan the entire object, for example a computer wafer, resulting in a massive gigapixel image with incredible resolution in full color. A working system for this purpose, has already been delivered to a major university in the UK.
Our new microscopes are modular. You can start with the lab system and upgrade it up to a top research microscope.
We previously planned to release two versions, Lab and Pro and that has been changed to one scalable system. Add accessory modules as needed to upgrade for more features.
Instead of a turret, the objectives will be mounted on a horizontal rail system and can be self-centering. You are looking at a sample and want to switch to a higher magnification, the objective is automatically changed and adjusted so that your field of view matches what you were looking at before.
Automated nano-positioning systems will be available to precisely move the slide.
The Ergonom microscopes have been replaced by our new SeeNano range of microscopes and will have all the optical capabilities of the previous Ergonom series, while adding fluorescence capabilities and realistic pricing.
We would like to thank the large number of people contacting us to enquire about our new range. We are working hard to perfect things so that when are new range is ready, it will be better and more affordable than anything we have ever offered, before. We will ensure our new microscopes are built to the highest quality standards, that you would expect from "Made in Germany" with optical capabilities that are second to none.
Our new product stategy will be to have an affordable basic model that can be expanded with a range of options. That is, our new microscopes can be upgraded from the basic version up to the highest level simply by upgrading or adding the relevant components.
Please note: All technical details are subject to change without notice, while we work on our new microscope range.
Introduction
Unsatisfied with the capabilities of existing light microscopes, it was decided to investigate why the resolution, color contrast and depth of field is so limited. This research led to the discovery of a unique new way of building microscopes which no longer suffered many of the constraints of existing optical theory. We found that by using a different approach to optics and a new mathematical approach, we could build microscopes with a large "cylinder of sharpness" (depth of field) and a true resolution of 100nm, while maintaining full contour sharpness and true colors without the need for staining, oil immersion, etc. This Grayfield Lens System is the basis of all our future optical systems.
The GLS technology has also been used to develop objectives for extreme image reduction, a quantum leap in the nano lithography of critical dimensions that can be used for computer wafer production.