Monday, February 16, 2015

Photonics West 2015- Prism Award Winners



Wednesday 11 February
Gala night for 'Oscar of photonics'
Prism Awards for Photonics Innovation
Nine new products were named winners of the 2015 Prism Awards for Photonics Innovation -- an honor dubbed by one presenter as the "Oscar of photonics" -- during a gala banquet Wednesday evening. Industry luminaries announced awards to:
  • Additive Manufacturing: LUXeXcel
  • Biomedical Instrumentation: BacterioScan
  • Detectors and Sensors: Hamamatsu
  • Imaging and Cameras: Seek Thermal and Raytheon
  • Industrial Lasers: IPG Photonics
  • Materials and Coatings: Inrad Optics
  • Optics and Optical Components: Intel, Corning, and US Conec
  • Other Metrology Instrumentation: WITec and Tescan Orsay
  • Scientific Lasers: Fianium.
Read more in the SPIE press release.

Meeting the Startup Challenge
SPIE Startup Challenge 2015
Blood-vessel-detecting technology for surgeons, a microphone that detects sound with no moving parts, and a plasmonic film that replaces a lab-bench worth of equipment with a robust, portable detector were selected as the top  projects in the 2015 SPIE Startup Challenge (above, winners, sponsors, and judges after the pitches).
First-place winner Jonathan Gunn of Briteseed LLC pitched SafeSnips, a blood-vessel-detecting technology that gives surgeons critical information to make more confident decisions in the operating room. A video of the winning pitch is online.
Taking second place, Balthasar Fischer of XARION Laser Acoustics pitched the Membrane-free Optical Microphone. The device requires neither a membrane nor any other moving component to convert sound into electrical voltage, exploiting the fact that sound can change the speed of light.
In third place, Jeffrey Crosby of Picoyune pitched a chemical sensing platform whose patented plasmonic film is highly sensitive to mercury and can be coupled with existing gas monitors. The intended first customers are coal-fired power plants that, by law, need to carefully monitor their output of mercury.
Read more in the SPIE press release.

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