ConScience was founded in 2012 by Joachim Fritzsche and Annelies Vanbrabant. Today, they co-own the company with Kasper Moth-Poulsen and Marcus Rommel, who has connections to Chalmers University. The company offers manufacturing and process development services, initially established due to the growing need to produce micro- and nanostructures.
Marcus Rommel is the CTO and began working at the company in 2016. Since then, the company has changed its name, developed, and expanded into various areas. The clients primarily include companies, multinational corporations, and universities worldwide, such as Oxford and Stanford University, which need help realizing their ideas.
Leading in Manufacturing Molds for Mother Machines
ConScience’s operations can be described in three parts, with the common goal of helping researchers and companies improve their research and production.
"One of the company's specialties, in which we are a world leader, is the manufacturing of molds for so-called 'Mother Machines.' These Mother Machines are microfluidic devices consisting of small channels through which liquids are passed, and they can be used, for example, to efficiently grow bacteria to test their immunity against various antibiotics. The technology has been highly successful, leading to the company Sysmax Astrego receiving the prestigious Longitude Prize earlier this year," Marcus explains.
Microfluidic devices are often made from a plastic material called PDMS, which is used in molds. However, the company has noticed an increasing demand from customers to instead work with a glass material. Therefore, the company is now focusing on replacing the molds and the PDMS process by constructing microfluidic devices directly in glass in a cost-effective way. This approach will make the devices more sustainable through reusability, reduce customer costs, and deliver better results.
The company primarily works in Chalmers' own cleanrooms, complemented by other MyFab cleanrooms at Lund University and KTH. To increase operational reliability and benefit from larger-scale production, ConScience expanded earlier this year to Denmark and began using the cleanrooms at DTU (Technical University of Denmark).
From qubits to problem solving for companies and research groups
"Another area we assist with is process development and scaling. In collaboration with Vinnova and Jonas Bylander's research group at MC2, we have further developed their successful manufacturing process for superconducting qubits. We helped them scale up their process, making it more efficient and sustainable. Based on that process development, we launched our first proprietary product containing qubits, so called Qubit-in-a-box 0, or QiB0. QiB0 is a perfect product for testing measuring equipment and learning how to interact with qubits," says Marcus.
The third area ConScience focuses on is solving problems and providing production solutions for companies or research groups. For example, universities might have previously relied on doctoral students for this type of support, but now require more regular and long-term assistance.
Future Goals and Prospects
According to Marcus, ConScience’s goal is to help researchers and companies grow and contribute to the success of all the great ideas that arise. This is done together with a strong team of owners and the five full-time employees in the company who work on the various aspects.
"We want to make research as good and efficient as possible, and most of those working here at ConScience have been researchers themselves. On average, there are about 13 years of experience working in cleanrooms, and this broad expertise only comes with time. We are very proud of our employees," says Marcus.
In the future, the company wants to focus more on quantum technology but also develop their micro- and nanofluidic devices.
"This is a profitable part of the company and has enabled our existence today. There is broad and excellent expertise, and I see a good opportunity for us to develop further in this area," Marcus concludes.
Read more about ConScience.
- Senior Research Engineer, Nanofabrication, Microtechnology and Nanoscience