Got innovation? Deadline is 11 October for photonics Prism Awards

Top new optical and photonics products for healthcare, manufacturing, energy, security and communication recognized in international competition

17 September 2013
Prism Awards 2013
The TeraDiode team including CEO Parviz Tayebati and Vice President Sales and Marketing Jay Liebowitz, left and right at the podium, accept the Prism Award in Industrial Lasers from Jenoptik CEO, Photonics21 President and German Government Commissioner Michael Mertin, far right.

BELLINGHAM, Washington, and PITTSFIELD, Massachusetts, USA -- Entries are now being accepted through 11 October for the prestigious 2014 Prism Awards for Photonics Innovation. The new extended deadline reflects a permanent change in the awards program, responding to requests to move the date out of the busy late-summer period. The international competition honors new technology and product inventions from the multi-billion dollar optics and photonics industry, and is sponsored by SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics, and Photonics Media.

The Prism Awards boost visibility and credibility for companies with the most creative product inventions annually. Products that have or will have been sold, delivered or launched between 1 January 2013 and 6 February 2014 are eligible. Companies may enter one product for multiple categories or multiple products in separate categories. Entries are being accepted in the categories of:

Prism Awards for Photonics Innovation

  • Advanced Manufacturing
  • Defense and Security
  • Detectors, Sensing, Imaging and Cameras
  • Energy
  • Industrial Lasers
  • Information and Communication
  • Other Light Sources
  • Life Sciences and Biophotonics
  • Optics and Optical Components
  • Scientific Lasers
  • Test, Measurement, Metrology.

Finalists will be announced in November.  Winners will be announced 5 February at a gala banquet held during SPIE Photonics West in San Francisco.

The competition is judged by an independent panel of industry experts including innovators from top companies, leaders in academia, business developers, previous award winners, financial experts, and much more. Judges for the 2014 awards are:

  • Uri Abrams, PD-LD Inc.
  • Joel Bagwell, Edmund Optics
  • Michael Bove, MIT Media Lab
  • John Dexheimer, Private Equity Investing
  • Jason Eichenholz, Open Photonics
  • Mickey Frish, Physical Sciences Inc.
  • Joseph Gortych, OPTICUS IP Law PLLC
  • Randy Heyler, Ondax, Inc.
  • Marc Himel, JENOPTIK Optical Systems
  • Wilhelm Kaenders, TOPTICA Photonics
  • Kenneth Kaufmann, Hamamatsu
  • Michael Lebby, Translucent Inc.
  • Robert Lieberman, Intelligent Optical Systems Inc.
  • Jian Liu, PolarOnyx
  • Jason McClure, Princeton Instruments
  • Paul McManamon, Exciting Technology
  • Marc Nantel, Research & Innovation, Niagara College
  • Jim Pearson, CREOL, Special Consultant
  • Ralf Reiter, SCHOTT AG
  • Ryszard Romaniuk, Warsaw University of Technology
  • Linda Smith, Ceres Technologies
  • Laura Smoliar, Consutant and Entrepreneur
  • Lynn Strickland, IDEX Optics & Photonics
  • Ferechteh Hosseini Teherani, Nanovation
  • Alastair Wilson, Photonics of ESP KTN.

Several 2013 Prism Award winners have collected new honors since last February's were announced, and a number of companies have reported advances with their winning products. Among them:

  • Heidelberg Instruments  has added a second write mode, a new light source option and other features to their MicroPG501 desktop-based maskless aligner.
  • Visualant has developed a liquid analysis product using the ChromaID structured-light technology for environmental sensing.
  • Princeton Instrument's IsoPlane SCT Spectrograph has been sold into leading universities and research laboratories in 12 different countries in North America, Australia, Asia and Europe.
  • OEwaves' chip-scale Micro-Opto-Electronic Oscillator has been incorporated into Lockheed Martin's Extended Area Protection and Survivability program's successful guided test fight of the Miniature Hit-to-Kill (MHTK) interceptor designed to defeat rocket, artillery and mortar targets at ranges greatly exceeding those of current systems.
  • TAG Optics' Lens 2.0, a new type of microscope lens that focuses in response to sound waves, has been piling up additional awards, and fine-tuning processes in order to meet rapidly increasing demand.
  • Verisante Technology has completed a full launch of its Aura skin cancer detector throughout clinics in Canada, with additional units in Europe.

SPIE is the international society for optics and photonics, a not-for-profit organization founded in 1955 to advance light-based technologies. The Society serves more than 235,000 constituents from approximately 155 countries, offering conferences, continuing education, books, journals, and a digital library in support of interdisciplinary information exchange, professional networking, and patent precedent. SPIE provided over $3.2 million in support of education and outreach programs in 2012.

Photonics Media, a brand of Pittsfield, Mass.-based Laurin Publishing Co. Inc., publishes Photonics Spectra, BioPhotonics, EuroPhotonics, Photonics Buyers' Guide< and Photonics.com. With a collective subscriber base of more than 150,000 worldwide and more than 4 million unique website visits per year, Laurin Publishing's Photonics Media products and publications lead the photonics industry with editorial excellence and integrity -- fostering a tradition of innovation and progress by sharing knowledge, insights and visions for the future.

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Media contact:
Amy Nelson
Public Relations Manager, SPIE
+1 360 685 5478
amy@spie.org
@SPIEtweets