The present TL company was founded in 1990 by Research Institute of Technical Physics of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest, General Physics Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, and world-famous scientists Prof. Norbert Kroo, Prof. A. M. Prohorov (Nobel Prize Laureate, 1964), Prof. Árpád Barna, internationally recognized members of the scientific community.
The idea of ion beam thinning unit was conceived at the Research Institute of Technical Physics of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in 1982. The goal was to prepare cross-sectional TEM samples by extreme low-angle ion beam machining.

By 1985 the first generation prototypes were produced and installed at several Eastern-European research units. The gained experience became the driving force of steady improvements: second and third generation (2G, 3G) Ion Beam Thinning Units were developed in less than 3 years, meanwhile four patents have been filed.
In 1994 the units were offered with a turbomolecular vacuum pump stand and in 1995 the system comprised all those features, which are really required by the practical users of ion mills. (4G, 5G)
In the middle of '90s TL focused on new solutions for making artifact-free samples. Since the surface of the sample bombarded by high-energy ions is damaged even at low-angle ion beam incidence one has to decrease the ion energy, too. Therefore a low-energy ion source was designed for ion milling in TEM sample preparation, as well as for sputtering of sample surfaces in surface analytical equipment. The first version of combined units with two different guns came to the market in 1996.
Exploiting the attributes of the very low-angle and low-energy ion beam treatment led to development of the computerized Gentle Mill with one low energy gun at the late '90s. This new brand name marks an absolutely new solution for end-polishing but also a quick thinning of dimpled samples. World's smallest low energy gun was born in year 2003. The mini-gun is applicable for any type of ion mills and special experimental setups.

Utilization of laser light scattering for determination of size distribution and concentration of air- and liquid-born particles started in early '90s at TL. The main activities are the development and marketing of PC-controlled air- and liquid-borne particle counters as well as the mobile environmental lab, which is assembled of these instruments. The Airborne Particle Counter was developed by the scientist of Research Institute for Solid State Physics of Hungarian Academy of Sciences.
TL started industrial production and marketing of the counters in late 1991. A new airborne particle counter with a modular measuring head with increased sensitivity, better signal/noise ratio and improved signal evaluation system was developed in 2001.
The investigation of the health effects of inhaled aerosols has become a continuous and widening research topic of the company. Especially, the development and application of complex numerical models for the quantification of the physical and biological mechanisms related to the inhaled air pollutants such as radon progenies, glass fibers, rubber dust and cigarette smoke.