Applications are now open for the 2025 SPIE Prism Awards, recognising the most innovative optics and photonics products across an ever-growing range of industry sectors and applications.
SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics, has cut the ribbon on its 2025 Prism Awards competiton, officially accepting applications for products from a range of award categories including healthcare, sensing, lasers and quantum. The 2025 iteration of the awards program, now in its 17th year, will also see the return of the SPIE Catalyst Award.
SPIE Prism Awards: Catalyst Award
Now in its second year, the Catalyst Award has quickly become a Prism Awards stalwart, honouring for-profit companies with specifically socially- or environmentally-focused programs that have made a significant positive impact over the past year – either in the workplace, the environment or society at large.
Intel Corporation took home the Catalyst Award 2024 last year, with its inclusive workforce development program – welcoming those that take a career break or show capability after two weeks of accelerated training. “This acknowledgment reflects Intel’s dedication to collaborate within our community to inspire more women and underrepresented minorities to pursue and succeed in technology careers which ultimately contributes to a world where diversity is a driving force for innovation and progress,” said Intel’s business operations manager for technology development, Diane Vidmantas.
Honouring Innovation in photonics products
“The SPIE Prism Awards highlights the best and most innovative optics and photonics technologies on the market,” said SPIE CEO Kent Rochford. “It takes significant efforts to bring these transformative products to market, efforts that we are proud to celebrate every year. I invite companies with a new photonic product to honour the team’s hard work and submit an application for consideration, showcasing their exciting light-enabled accomplishments.”
2025 Prism Award categories and previous winners
The nine award categories that split the SPIE Prism Awards 2025 program are AR/VR/MR, Autonomy, Biomedical, Cameras and Imaging, Lasers, Quantum tech, Sensors, Software and Test and Measurement, together representing the most rapidly developing areas for optics and photonics technology.
Big winners at the 2024 Prism Awards included Qunnect in the Quantum category, for its QU-APC (auto polarisation compensator) instrument, which was designed to actively compensate for the noise induced by environmental perturbations on telecom fibre while it transports fragile qubits. “Being recognised by SPIE with a Prism Award validates the industry need for QU-APC and Qunnect as a quantum innovator,” said Qunnect CEO Noel Goddard, on receiving the award.
Other winners announced at the 2024 Prism Awards on 31 January 2024 during SPIE Photonics West, included Scantinel Photonics, winning in the Sensors category with its SingleChip lidar sensor. “We are overwhelmed and honoured to receive this recognition from such a prestigious organisation,” said managing director of Scantinel Photonics, Micheal Richter. “This award is a testament to the hard work and dedication of our team.”
Celebrating the big and small of optics and photonics
The winners roster from previous Prism Awards includes many more of the biggest names and groundbreaking products in optics and photonics, from industry giants such as General Electric; IPG Photonics; Edmund Optics and Leica, to emerging startups like Double Helix Optics, PhotoniCare, Luminar, Blackmore and WaveOptics.
The deadline for applications is 13 September, and the winners of the 17th SPIE Prism Awards will be announced, as usual, at a gala evening during SPIE Photonics West in San Francisco, CA, USA on 29 January 2025.
