SPIE Names Winners of 15th Annual Prism Awards

SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics, and media partner Photonics Media recognized the top innovators in optics and photonics products at the 2023 Prism Awards ceremony held at Photonics West on Feb. 1. The event co-sponsors also celebrated the 15th anniversary of the awards with a champagne toast, a timeline gallery of past winners, and a video showcasing a decade and a half of Prism Awards highlights.

The annual awards ceremony showcases the latest developments and technical innovations across photonics and photonics-enabled industries. This year, the event honored a range of established companies and emerging startups that are applying creative solutions to critical problems in areas such as augmented and virtual reality, sensors, lasers, quantum technology, and biomedical optical solutions. SPIE received 76 applications from 19 countries for this year’s competition.

SPIE and media partner Photonics Media recognized the winning companies in eight categories at the 2023 Prism Awards. The Feb. 1 ceremony, which took place during SPIE Photonics West, marked the 15th anniversary of the awards. Courtesy of SPIE.

Finalists and winners were selected by a panel of distinguished international judges from across technology commercialization and funding sectors, including Zane Arp of the FDA, Adi Diner of iFocus, Simi George of AXA-XL, Marc D. Himel of MKS Instruments, Qiong-ying Hu of Coherent, Shahida Imani of Chromacity, Jason McClure of Teledyne Princeton Instruments, Alison McLeod of Technology Scotland, Nishant Mohan of Tesseract Health, Cather Simpson of Engender Technologies, Linda Smith of Ceres Technology Advisors, Mark A. Tolbert of TOPTICA, and Ferechteh Teherani of Nanovation.

“The Prism Awards always showcase an impressive spectrum of innovative solutions based on optics and photonics technology,” SPIE CEO Kent Rochford said. “By providing products powered by photonics, all of these companies — and I am including the finalists as well as tonight’s winners — are offering a terrific array of impactful technologies that will transform lives across the world. I am so excited to be here tonight to congratulate them in person.”

The 2023 Prism Awards crowned winners in eight categories, ranging from test and measurement to biomedical and quantum tech. SPIE received applications from 76 companies located in 19 countries. Courtesy of Photonics Media.

Team members from Philophos — a Daejeon, South Korea-based startup commercializing portable, low-cost OCT technologies — celebrate winning a Prism Award in the Biomedical category. Courtesy of Philophos.

Tom Laurin, president and CEO of Photonics Media, said, “The range of technology solutions presented at this year’s Prism Awards ceremony leaves no doubt that innovation in optics and photonics continues to chart a profoundly ambitious course. All the finalists, and especially this year’s winners, demonstrate that our industry continues to provide breakthrough solutions for cutting-edge applications in quantum, integrated photonics, data communications, and health care, among others. We offer our congratulations to the winners in recognition of their achievement.”

AR/VR/MR

TriLite Technologies (Vienna)
Trixel 3 is a miniature, lightweight projection display that incorporates a micro-optical RGB laser light source that shifts light module complexity from the hardware to the software domain, and a MEMS mirror to generate bright, high-quality images.

Biomedical

Philophos (Daejeon, South Korea)
The KUOS-O100 is a compact, 5-kg OCT device for retinal imaging. All components — including a monitor, PC, headrest, and chinrest — are built into a single package.

Cameras and Imaging Systems

Metalenz (Boston)
The PolarEyes imaging module features full-Stokes polarization imaging technology in a mobile form factor, based on a single metasurface optic.

Lasers

Kyocera SLD Laser (Goleta, Calif.)
The LaserLight LiFi System is a light-based data communications module that offers a 1-Gbit/s transmission rate, bi-directionally, in the air, and over line of sight, using eye-safe, dual-emission white/infrared LaserLight sources.

Quantum Tech

QuiX Quantum (Enschede, Netherlands)
The 20-mode Quantum Photonic Processor from QuiX Quantum enables plug-and-play, integrated, and reconfigurable hardware for the manufacture of sophisticated and customizable commercialized PIC configurations.

Sensors

Ocean Insight (Orlando, Fla.)
SpeedSorter is a precise, in-line laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy sensor for high-throughput sorting of nonferrous metals, including the separation of aluminum classes and alloys, enabling efficient recycling for the circular economy.

Software

Dotphoton (Zug, Switzerland)
Jetraw raw image compression software for pharma, biomedical, and industrial data centers reduces data size sevenfold, on average, while preserving image information.

Test & Measurement

Precitec Optronik (Neu-Isenburg, Germany)
The Flying Spot Scanner FSS310 provides OCT-based thickness and topography measurements. Its movable mirror system replaces the long paths of linear axes with short rotary movements, greatly reducing measuring time.

The leadership team from photonic quantum computing company QuiX Quantum celebrates earning an award in the Quantum Tech category. (From left) CTO Devin Smith, CEO Stefan Hengesbach, and chief scientist Jelmer Renema. Courtesy of Trilite.

Vienna-based TriLite Technologies won an award in the category of AR/VR/MR. (From left) CEO Peter Weigand, product marketing manager Susan Backhaus, and senior optical engineer Adarsh Prasad. Courtesy of SPIE.

This article was originally published on February 2, 2023, and has since been expanded to include additional information about the winners and their products.