Displays and Lighting: Dolby, Christie and Necsel (USA) — In the
Dolby Vision Cinema Laser Projector, the three companies have combined their expertise to create a greatly enhanced premium cinema experience with high contrast, high brightness, a wide color gamut and excellent 3D performance.
Imaging and Cameras: First Light Imaging (Meyreuil, France) — The
C-RED One SWIR camera improves noninvasive detection and diagnostics for diseases and research, and opens a new era in astronomical, biomedical, industry and defense imagery.
Industrial Lasers: LightFab GmbH (Aachen, Germany) — The
LightFab 3D enables true 3D structures in pure glasses without design limitations, making possible the mass production of micro 3D glass for fields as diverse as optics, precision mechanics, electronics, chemistry, and medicine.
Materials and Coatings: Nanoco Group PLC (Manchester, England) — Nontoxic, cadmium-free
quantum dots enable a broad range of new applications in display and lighting, from high-end televisions and horticulture lighting to bioimaging and solar.
Nanoco's cadmium quantum dots won the Prism Award for Materials and Coatings.
Optics and Optical Components: Boulder Nonlinear Systems (USA). Large-aperture, low- size, weight, and power wide-angle
beam steering enables electro-optics technologies for defense, aerospace, energy, automotive, and telecommunications, in applications from small satellites to agile long-range laser systems.
Other Metrology Instrumentation: 4D Technology Corp. (Tucson, Ariz.) — The
FlexCam is a compact, vibration-insensitive, high-resolution 3D metrology module that meets the need for fast, scalable, cost-effective defect and roughness metrology for flexible electronics, including wearable health/fitness monitors, organic LED displays, thin-film solar devices, and low-cost mobile devices.
Scientific Lasers: Lytid SAS (Paris) —
TeraCascade is a compact, user-friendly, easily transportable, high-frequency terahertz laser source that transforms state-of-the-art quantum cascade laser technology into a user-friendly tool that works with nearly every terahertz detector on the market.
French firm Lytid accepts a Prism Award for TeraCascade, a user-friendly quantum cascade laser.
"This year's winning products ingeniously deploy key photonics technologies such as quantum cascade and terahertz lasers, IRsensing, and 3D printing, placing powerful new capabilities in the hands of users," said SPIE CEO Eugene Arthurs. "They address pressing issues such as the world's need for sustainable energy and light, and clinicians' needs for quickly identifying the best drugs to target challenging diseases in time to saves lives and staunch outbreaks before they become epidemics. Products such as these provide highly effective means of demonstrating the vast potential of photonics technologies to serve humankind as well as to help grow world economies."
"In memory of our founder, Teddi Laurin, who passed away last November, and on behalf of everyone at Laurin Publishing, I'm pleased to join SPIE in recognizing and celebrating the 2016 Prism Awards winners, and sharing their innovations with our global audience," said Laurin Publishing President and CEO Thomas Laurin. "As we contemplate Teddi's impact on our business and on the photonics industry, we are reminded that she understood the need to recognize innovation and to applaud the companies that achieved it."
Dolby, Christie and Necsel shared credit for the Prism Award-winning Dolby Vision Cinema Laser Projector.
SPIE is the international society for optics and photonics, an educational not-for-profit organization founded in 1955 to advance light-based science, engineering, and technology. The Society serves nearly 264,000 constituents from approximately 166 countries, offering conferences and their published proceedings, continuing education, books, journals, and the SPIE Digital Library. In 2015, SPIE provided more than $5.2 million in support of education and outreach programs.
Photonics Media, a business unit of Pittsfield, Mass.-based Laurin Publishing Co. Inc., publishes
Photonics Spectra, BioPhotonics, EuroPhotonics, Industrial Photonics, Photonics Buyers' Guide and Photonics.com. With a collective subscriber base of more than 150,000 worldwide and more than 2 million 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.