A Journey of Achievements: G&H’s 2024 International Awards and Recognitions

2024 has been a remarkable year for breakthroughs in research and technology. From ancient hot water trails on Mars to taking concrete steps towards restoring brain cells, humanity has been making significant scientific progress in recent months. G&H is marching to the same beat as the proverbial drummer, in the spirit of our guiding principle: facilitating a better world with photonics. Aside from our own internal celebration of 75 years of excellence in optics, photonics and life sciences, our teams have managed to deliver solutions that have gained international recognition. Here, we highlight these important moments of acknowledgement that underscore our contributions to technological advancements in 2024.

Innovation

Photonics100 – Stuart MacFarquhar

We are delighted to find our colleague Stuart MacFarquhar, Optical Design Engineer at G&H, as a laureate on the prestigious Photonics100 list for 2025, an award that celebrates the photonics industry’s most innovative figures. Stuart is a rising star who is currently working in the exciting and emerging branch of Photonic Integrated Circuits (PICs). In his current position at G&H, Stuart is looking into developing the first company-owned designs for PICs, specifically adapted for detection devices.

One of the underlying trends in photonics-based technology is the push for miniaturization. This involves reducing size, weight and power for devices and subsystems, while maintaining high performance. In the case of the research and development project Stuart is steering, his angle has been to reimagine an optical circuit design that currently fits into something the size of a matchbox and convert it into a fingernail-sized dimension with enhanced functionality.

Read more about Stuart’s pioneering work on PIC developments in our exclusive interview here.

Tech South West – Space & Aviation finalists

Through the G&H Torquay site, our company has been shortlisted as a finalist for the Space & Aviation Award at the Tech South West Awards 2024.

The nomination is for our innovative SmallCAT laser transmitter, currently onboard the Norwegian NorSat Technology Demonstrator (NorSat-TD). This groundbreaking technology significantly enhances data transmission of small satellites, surpassing conventional radio frequency (RF) communications. TNO, the Dutch applied scientific research organization leading the space project, has validated the satellite-to-ground station stability of the transmitted signal in the first half of 2024, marking the first successful space communications experiment of its size in European space photonics. This high-tech solution has also been awarded second place in the “Impact Delivered” category at the 16th EARTO Innovation Awards for the CubeCAT laser communication terminal.

Read more about the G&H high-power laser amplifier on board the NorSat-TD here.

Sustainability

Lab Awards – Sustainable Lab of the Year finalists

Our G&H | ITL site in Ashford, United Kingdom has been shortlisted as a finalist for the Sustainable Lab of the Year Award at the Lab Awards 2024, hosted by Lab Innovations.

This nomination reflects G&H's continuous efforts to implement sustainable practices that lower environmental impact and enhance resource efficiency. Over the years, our team at the Ashford facility in the UK has made consistent progress toward greener goals, and this recognition highlights our investments in sustainability.

The pinnacle of the year was the recommendation for our Life Sciences Center of Excellence to achieve accreditation for ISO 14001:2015 in Environmental Management Systems (EMS) by the International Organization for Standardization, proving G&H’s continuous efforts to integrate sustainable solutions into our technological ecosystem.

Find out more about the company’s sustainability actions here.

Operational success

Tech South West – Nick Matthews for People’s Choice Award finalist

A visionary leader within the company, Nick Matthews, Site General Manager – Optical Systems at G&H, has been recognized for his extraordinary craft around organisational change by delivering a 41% increase in production output with the team at G&H | Artemis in the first year after the acquisition of the Plymouth-based business.

Nick worked with the engineers on site to identify new coating technologies and was able utilize the site’s CapEx budget to purchase and develop a specialized coating plant for this purpose – transitioning it into immediate full capacity production. The project took 10 months to complete and added 15% extra capacity at G&H | Artemis. Streamlining the part traveling process reduced operational inefficiencies by 40%, significantly enhancing productivity and ensuring on-time delivery.