Tristan Technologies was first created in 1991 by former principals of San Diego superconducting companies Biomagnetic Technologies (BTi) and S.H.E. Corporation. This company was subsequently sold to Conductus, Sunnyvale in 1993, and became its Instrument & Systems Division in San Diego. This division closed in July 1997, and several employees reformed Tristan Technologies in August 1997.

As part of the reformation, Tristan acquired from Conductus the rights to the iMAG® product line and associated product lines, and continues to manufacture the iMAG® series LTS and HTS SQUID systems as standard products and as parts of custom cryogenic measurement systems.

Nearly half of Tristan’s staff have advanced technical degrees, with over a century of accumulated experience in superconducting technology. Tristan Technologies presently occupies a ~2000 square foot facility in the Miramar area of San Diego, over half of which is devoted to custom fabrication. This location, near UCSD, provides easy access to local companies with specialized manufacturing capabilities and outstanding engineering expertise.

Tristan’s strength is in the design and manufacture of laboratory and custom SQUID systems. Tristan’s standard product line of SQUID instrumentation is the widest available for scientific laboratory applications. Custom SQUID magnetometers supplied by Tristan personnel include the first commercial high temperature SQUID magnetometer and gradiometer, liquid helium scanning SQUID microscopes with 2 µm resolution (the world’s first magnetic microscope) and 100+ channel biomagnetometers for medical applications.