PHI, Phaseform's plug-and-play adaptive optics platform for microscopes, was one of three finalists in the Biophotonics & Medical Applications category of the Photonics Frontiers Award 2026. The award is organized by the magazine Electro Optics and recognizes innovations that shape the future of photonics.
The winner was announced on 6 May 2026 at the Optatec trade fair in Frankfurt. The 2026 award went to Q.ANT for their industry-ready photonic AI co-processor. We congratulate the winner and are proud that PHI stood alongside strong work in biophotonics and surgical imaging on the shortlist. Our CTO and co-founder, Dr. Pouya Rajaeipour, represented Phaseform at the ceremony.
What PHI does
PHI mounts on the camera port of a commercial microscope and adds real-time aberration correction and motionless 3D focusing, with no modification to the microscope itself. At its core is our transmissive Deformable Phase Plate, which makes adaptive optics practical for routine microscopy: researchers correct aberrations, recover image quality and obtain more reliable 3D data without rebuilding their optical path.
For us, the shortlist is a milestone on the way to making adaptive optics a standard tool in the life-science lab. Read more about the 2026 shortlist and about PHI in routine microscopy workflows at Electro Optics, or see the PHI product page.
