Description
Each year Microscopy Today presents ten awards to organizations or individuals who have launched or published innovations in microscopy or microanalysis. Winning products and methods are selected based on their usefulness to the microscopy community. The entries most likely to win are those that provide better, faster, easier, or entirely new methods of analysis using a microscope or microanalytical instrument.
Deadline
The annual deadline for completed forms is March 21 or the following Monday if this day falls on a weekend.
How to Submit
Fill out this form and submit it via our official submission site.
Please note: the submitter will be the sole correspondent concerning the application.
Notification of Award
Winners will be nofitifed on or around June 1.
Eligibility & Nominations Info
Entries will be accepted only for the following: (a) new commercial microscopy-related products that were first marketed in the previous calendar year or (b) new microscopy methods and inventions that were first published in peer-reviewed journals in the previous calendar year. While multiple entries from the same organization are allowed, a single company or individual cannot receive more than one award in a single year. Officers and editors of the Microscopy Society of America and their subcontractors are not eligible.
Entries may come from colleagues or as self-nominations. There are only four questions on the entry form. There is no charge to enter this competition.
Judging Criteria
The entries most likely to win are those that provide better, faster, easier, or entirely new methods of analysis using some type of microscope or microanalytical instrument.
A winning entry should show the innovation’s usefulness to the microscopy community via the clarity and completeness of Questions 7-10. Supporting information, such as scientific papers, patents, or data may be included as an appendix, but please organize these supplements into a single (pdf or zip) file to facilitate the transmission process. Related videos also may be included in zip file format.
Descriptive Evidence about Product or Method
Evidence types include data from a working instrument/method or a peer-reviewed publication. Photographs of the commercial product available for sale or a citation to the peer-reviewed article must be provided. Submission of photographs implies permission has been granted to publish the photographs in Microscopy Today.
2025 Winners
Electron Microscopy
University of Arizona for Attomicroscope, enabling attosecond temporal resolution in TEM
VitroTEM for Naiad, an automated graphene liquid cell system enabling in-situ TEM at the atomic level
Protochips, Inc for Triton AXTM, an in-situ liquid heating and cooling electrochemical cell for TEM
SenseAI Innovations for a fast low-dose image acquisition and reconstruction system
Light Microscopy
Leica Microsystems CMS GmbH for STELLARIS SpectraPlex, enabling advanced 3D high-multiplex imaging
MBF Bioscience LLC for SLICE, a compact low-cost high-resolution light-sheet microscope
Ramona Optics Inc for Vireo, a computational microscope that offers the world’s fastest live-cell imaging
Tomocube Inc for HT-X1 Plus, a holotomographic microscope enabling label-free 3D live-cell imaging
Microanalysis
Concord U, Rigaku, Advanced Microbeam for germanium diffracting crystals for WDS X-ray spectrometers
JEOL USA and JEOL Ltd for a specimen holder enabling operando observation by SEM-EDS of Li migration
Previous Winners
Descriptions of winning products and methods are published in the September issue of Microscopy Today. View the magazine and previous issues here.