Noble gas mass spectrometry software

The software your
instruments deserve.

Pychron is the comprehensive platform for noble gas mass spectrometry — automated acquisition, instrument control, data reduction, and git-backed data management in a single integrated system.

View support plans Read the docs →
14+
Institutions
15+
Years in production
100+
Hardware drivers
NMGRL WiscAr USGS SWIRL Lamont-Doherty AGES NASA MSFC University of Ottawa AEL-AMS Manitoba Isotope Research University of Arizona ANGL Purdue RIGL UIUC Isotope Geochemistry USGS Reston Arizona State Cosmochemistry University of Melbourne Geological Survey of Canada
NMGRL WiscAr USGS SWIRL Lamont-Doherty AGES NASA MSFC University of Ottawa AEL-AMS Manitoba Isotope Research University of Arizona ANGL Purdue RIGL UIUC Isotope Geochemistry USGS Reston Arizona State Cosmochemistry University of Melbourne Geological Survey of Canada
The platform

One system for the entire lab workflow

Pychron is not a single application — it's a suite of specialized tools built on a unified plugin framework. Each component handles a distinct part of the geochronology workflow and communicates seamlessly when deployed across multiple lab computers.

Developed at NMGRL over 15 years of real lab use, Pychron handles everything from first sample to final age table without leaving the platform.

Automated acquisition PyScript-driven experiment queues with conditional logic, real-time monitoring, and automatic DVC data persistence.
Instrument control Native drivers for Thermo Argus/Helix, Isotopx NGX, Photon Machines and Synrad lasers, resistance furnaces, and 100+ hardware devices.
Git-backed data management Every analysis stored as version-controlled JSON. Full audit trail, reproducible reduction, and easy data sharing between labs.
Pipeline data reduction Modular reduction pipeline with isochron fitting, blank interpolation, IC factor correction, and publication-ready output.
SAMPLE 63851 · NM-MAS-01 Age = 0.10 ± 0.01 Ma · ⁴⁰Ar/³⁶Ar = 284.44 ± 2.83 · n = 10 AGE SPECTRUM 100 0 %⁴⁰Ar* 0.25 0.20 0.15 0.10 0.05 0 Apparent age (Ma) 0 20 40 60 80 100 Cumulative %³⁹ArK Plateau · 0.101 ± 0.003 Ma MSWD 0.15 · n = 7 Integrated age · 0.089 ± 0.003 Ma · n = 10 INVERSE ISOCHRON .00345 .00325 .00300 .00275 .00250 .00225 ³⁶Ar/⁴⁰Ar 0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 ³⁹Ar/⁴⁰Ar 01A 01B 01K 01H 01J 01G MSWD = 4.09 · n = 10 ±1σ envelope · ±1σ ellipses
Trusted by

Active deployments across the US, Canada, and Australia

From government surveys to university research groups, Pychron powers noble gas measurements at institutions worldwide.

NMGRL
New Mexico Geochronology Research Laboratory — New Mexico Tech
WiscAr
University of Wisconsin Geochronology Labs
USGS SWIRL
US Geological Survey Southwest Isotope Research Lab
LDEO-AGES
Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory Argon Geochronology for the Earth Sciences
NASA MSFC
NASA Marshall Space Flight Center Noble Gas Research Lab
AEL-AMS Ottawa
André E. Lalonde AMS Laboratory — University of Ottawa
Manitoba
Manitoba Isotope Research Facility
ANGL Arizona
University of Arizona Noble Gas Laboratory
Purdue RIGL
Purdue University Radiogenic Isotope Geology Lab
UIUC
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Isotope Geochemistry Lab
USGS Reston
US Geological Survey — Reston, Virginia
ASU
Arizona State University Isotope Cosmochemistry and Geochronology Lab
U Melbourne
University of Melbourne — School of Geography, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences
GSC
Geological Survey of Canada — Natural Resources Canada
Support plans

Support contracts

Pychron is open source and always will be. Support contracts from Pychron Labs LLC give your lab a direct working relationship with the developer who built the platform — for installations, hardware integrations, migrations, and the day-to-day questions that come up when running production geochronology software.

Direct developer access Bug fixes, configuration questions, and architecture discussions go straight to the person who wrote the code — not a help desk.
Hardware integration New mass spectrometers, lasers, valves, and extraction-line components brought online against your existing Pychron deployment.
MassSpec migration Structured migration of legacy MassSpec data and workflows into the Pychron DVC schema, with validation against your existing analyses.
Lab configuration & documentation A maintained snapshot of your lab's setupfiles, profiles, and bundles, plus lab-specific runbook documentation your students can actually use.

Annual contracts are tiered by lab size and response-time needs. Get in touch to discuss which fits your lab.

Get in touch
About

About Pychron Labs

The company

Pychron Labs LLC is a scientific software consulting firm specializing in data acquisition and processing for noble gas mass spectrometry. We are the primary developers and maintainers of the Pychron software suite.

Founded at the New Mexico Geochronology Research Laboratory, Pychron Labs emerged from 15 years of building and refining the tools that geochronology labs actually need. Our support contracts aren't help-desk access — they're a direct relationship with the people who wrote the code, understand the physics, and have debugged every failure mode the platform has ever encountered.

Pychron Labs offers installation, annual support contracts, custom development, and hosted infrastructure for labs running Pychron.

The developer

Pychron was designed, built, and is actively maintained by Dr. Jake Ross, who has deep domain expertise in both software engineering and geochronology.

Jake Ross examining an ignimbrite outcrop on an island in the Sea of Cortez
SEA OF CORTEZ · IGNIMBRITE OUTCROP
Jake Ross, PhD
Founder & Lead Developer
Jake developed Pychron during his doctoral research at New Mexico Tech and has maintained it in active use at NMGRL and a network of international laboratories. His dual background in geoscience and software engineering means that when something breaks at 2am before a sample run, he understands both the technical failure and what's at stake.
Contact

Get in touch

Whether you're evaluating Pychron for a new instrument, looking to formalize support for an existing installation, or migrating from MassSpec — we want to hear from you.

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Location
Socorro, New Mexico, USA