AMA Innovation Award 2015:
Double Winner Crystalline Semiconductors
The AMA Association for Sensors and Measurement (AMA) will present the winners of the AMA Innovation Award 2015 at the SENSOR+TEST trade fair in Nuremberg on the 19th of May. This year, an Austrian development team convinced the jury twofold.
The "Ultraprecise Frequency Measurement with Crystalline Semiconductor Mirrors" project won the AMA Innovation Award 2015 after having already won the Young Enterprises Special Award.
The Crystalline Mirror Solutions' developer team, Christian Pawlu, Professor Markus Aspelmeyer, and Garrett Cole, thus received the 10,000-euro AMA Innovation Award as well as a free trade-fair stand at the SENSOR+TEST.
Image: AMA Verband
A new approach to the precise measurement of time and space by the use of crystalline mirrors reducing thermal noise by a factor of ten swayed the jury in both competing categories. "This year, 50 teams contended with first-rate development projects for the AMA Innovation Award. A compelling solution for the entire field of measuring technology and the demonstrated market relevance of the crystalline semiconductor mirrors clearly stood out among all the excellent projects," said jury chair Professor Andreas Schütze from the Saarland University, explaining the verdict.
A laser beam is bounced back and forth between highly reflecting mirrors to obtain a precise measurement of time and space. However, the exactitude of the method is limited by thermal noise. A radically new approach by the developer team using crystalline semiconductor mirrors was able to significantly minimize this thermal noise. The Crystalline Mirror Solutions company from Vienna recognized areas of application in communications and measuring technologies as well as in aerospace. The team is showing its twofold winning project at the SENSOR+TEST 2015 in Hall 12, 12-689.
Source: AMA Verband für Sensorik und Messtechnik e.V