In a gala ceremony held on September 26, on the TRUMPF campus in Ditzingen, Germany, the Berthold Leibinger Zukunftpreis (Future Prize) and Innovationspreis (Innovation Prize) were awarded. The ceremony is held biennially to celebrate outstanding development and scientific work on the application or generation of laser light.
The Zukunftspreis of 30,000 euros, first awarded in 2006, went to British physicist Prof. Philip Russell, now at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light (Erlangen, Germany), for his invention of and outstanding research on photonic crystal fibers (PCF). Here's a video profiling Prof. Russell and the importance of PCF:
The winners of the Berthold Leibinger Innovationspreis, chosen by a jury of 11 judges from among 32 applications, were:
First Prize: Dr. Alexander A. Oraevsky, President and CEO of TomoWave Laboratories (Houston, TX) for a Laser Optoacoustic Imaging System. TomoWave Laboratories is an R&D company with broad experience and expertise in biomedical devices based on laser optoacoustic and laser ultrasonic imaging, sensing, and monitoring, as this exploratory video shows:
Second Prize: Dr. Helmut Erdl and Dr. Abdelmalek Hanafi from the BMW Group (Munich, Germany), for a Vehicular Illumination System Using Semiconductor Laser Diodes. This video shows their illuminating work:
Related LFW article:Laser headlights for Spring 2014
Third Prize: Dr. Shun-Yee Michael Liu, Prof. Hwa-yaw Tam, and Prof. Siu Lau Ho, at the Photonics Research Centre & Department of Electrical Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, for Laser Sensing Network for Railway Monitoring. This video on the reseachers shows the fiber Bragg grating technology behind the sensor system:
Related LFW article: Fiber-Bragg-grating sensor system under test on China's high-speed rail