This issue showcases the winners of the third annual Microscopy Today Innovation Awards competition. These awards were established to honor innovative microscopy-related products and methods that appeared in the previous year.
Our team of judges, led by Tom Kelly, looked for innovations that will make new scientific investigations possible. The ten winning innovations are selected on the basis of their importance and usefulness to the microscopy community. The entries most likely to win are those that provide better, faster, or entirely new methods of analysis using some type of microscope or microanalytical instrument.
The 2012 Microscopy Today Innovation Award winners are:
Bruker Nano Surfaces Dimension FastScan™ improves AFM speed 10×
FEI Vion™Plasma Focused Ion Beam provides analysis of 3D circuits
Gatan K2 Summit Direct Detection Camera records at high resolution
Leica SR GSD Super-Resolution Microscope achieves 20 nm resolution
Lumen Dynamics Internal Pulse Generator programs LED light sources
Olympus SCALEVIEW Microscope Objectives peer deep into brain tissue
PNNL Multimodal Electrochemical Probe for in-situ TEM experiments
Rebellion Photonics ARROW enables hyperspectral video imaging
Technical University of Denmark 3D-OMiTEM facilitates 3D orientation mapping
Tousimis touch screen 931 for critical-point drying of difficult samples
Descriptions of the above innovations are given in an article within this issue. Congratulations to the developers of these instruments and methods.
Details of the nomination process for the 2013 Microscopy Today Innovation Awards will be posted on the Microscopy Today website (www.microscopy-today.com) by January 1, 2013. Nomination applications will be accepted through March 15, 2013.
