update : 2009/05/25

【History】【Admimistrative Organization Architecture】【Courses】

【Research】【International Collaborations】

History

In response to the rapid growth in optoelectronic science and technologies across the world, the Institute of Optical Sciences (IOS) was established under College of Science, Nationa l Central University in 1982. IOS started to offer Ph.D program in 1987, recruiting students with a variety of backgrounds from optoelectronics, physics, electrical engineering, to material science. The department's overarching vision is to lead in the creation and development of intellectual and human capital in Optics and Photonics, in order to foster the academic and economic enrichment of the country. Since established, IOS has been devoting to the education, research, and technology developments, thus holding a high reputation in both academic research and industrial collaborations in Taiwan. Current research in IOS covers optical design, optical testing and measurement, thin film optics, color science and technologies, novel lasers, sonicand photonic crystals, negative refraction, micro-optical devices and systems, nano-photonics, nonlinear optics, solar cells, micro electro-optical-mechanics, solid-state lighting, hologram, volume hologram storage, optical storage, projection display technologies, confocal microscopy, nonlinear solid-state laser, integrated photonics, surface plasmon biosensing, bio-chips, and bio-medical imaging.

With the increasing demands for high-level human resources from the optoelectronic industry fostered by the “Two-Trillion-for-Twin-Star” Industry Development Plan promoted by the government, the Department of Optics and Photonics (DOP) was established in 2006. The IOS acquired around 9 millions USD from Delta Electronics Inc. in 2005 for a new Kuo-Ting Optoelectronics Building, named after Mr. Kuo-Ting Lee who is a Chinese economist and statesman best known as the “Father of Taiwan's Economic Miracle”. The new building is scheduled to be finished in 2010 and will solve the long-term limited-space issue and further enable the department to carry out large-scale projects. The DOP not only focuses on the current research but envisions the future; three research institutes will soon be established: the Institute of Vision and Imaging, the Institute of Color and Art, and the Institute of Electromagnetic Waves and Advanced Optoelectronic Materials. With all these effort, the DOP at National Central University are determined to moving forward, taking the lead in cross-disciplinary research to reshape our lives in the future.

Admimistrative Organization Architecture

Degree Programs Offered by the Department of Optics and Photonics

Administrative Organization Architecture of Dept. of Optics and Photonics

Courses

Our program devotes in educating opto-electric research and technology personnel. To achieve this goal, we designed the curriculum mainly based on optics with various aspects of fundamental, advanced and application courses. Based on the course design, we dedicate to train researchers who possess various knowledge including physics, electric engineering, material science and bio-medical to levitate the opto-electronic research level in academic, defense, and industry of Taiwan. The course design of the undergraduate program not only allows the students acquire fundamental science and engineering education, but specially focus on the knowledge and skill-training of optics. Therefore, the students can then fully understand the essence of the optics and obtain a good foundation before they can involve in further research or opto-electronics industry work. The graduate program focuses on assorted special research topics as the solid academic foundation and reinforces the theoretic and practical research capability of the graduate students.

The mandatory courses for the undergraduate program includes: Introduction to Optics and Photonics, Introduction to Computer Science, Engineering Mathematics, Electromagnetism, Microelectronic circuits, Microelectronics and Experiments in Electronics, Modern Physics, Optics, The Physics of Optoelectronic semiconductors, Special Topics on Optoelectronic Science and Technology, Introduction to Electro-Optical Engineering, Opto-electronics Laboratory, Optics Laboratory, and Optical design. Introduction to Optics and Photonics is offered at the freshman year and it gives an overview of various fields of optics. This course can help the students to study other advanced courses at their sophomore and junior years. Optional courses emphasize on reinforce the mathematics, fundamental knowledge, experimental skills and specialized subjects of opto-electronics courses which offer students a great variety of choices based on their own interests. The graduate courses do not officially have sub-division. The main guidance of the courses is to offer the latest development of opto-electronics and optical science which gives students a solid academic base and boosts the ability of theoretic and practical researches. The mandatory courses include Fourier Optics, Geometric Optics, Crystal Optics, Interference and Diffraction, Laser Physics, and Optics Laboratory. The courses are slightly adjusted for graduate program and PhD program accordingly. The optional courses include assorted research profession which allows students to choice according to their interest.

Research

Optics has been the core research area since the establishment of the Institute of Optical Sciences (IOS). With the expansion of faculty members in recent years, our research now covers a wide variety of areas, including optical engineering, optical design, thin film optics, opto-electronics testing and measurement, optical information processing, solid-state lighting, display technology, opto-electronics material, nanophotonics, and laser. The publication has great quality and quantity. Despite relatively small-scale of faculty and students, we constantly have an average of 60 SCI-listed journal papers each year for the past 3 years. The faculty also vigorously joins large-scale inter-university and inter-department research projects. From 2008-2009 alone, there are 5 integrated research projects granted by the National Science Council, 2 major technology innovation projects by Ministry of Economic Affairs, one “Excellence” Project and one “Post-Excellence” Project by Ministry of Education, showing strong aspirations and capabilities of our faculty to carry out large-scale research projects. In addition to the faculty’s outstanding performance, many students earned best paper awards, best thesis awards, outstanding graduate student fellowship and funding support for one-year study broad from the government. With the completion of the new Kuo-Ting Optoelectronics building in 2010 donated by Delta Electronics Inc., our department will continue to thrive for years to come.

International Collaborations

To open students' eyes to the world beyond the borders of the classrooms, the DOP and the College of Optics, University of Arizona has signed a five-year International Memorandum of Agreement that, starting from spring 2009, will implement research collaborations and the exchange of scholars, technical staff and students. In addition, the two-way student exchange agreement between the DOP andChulalongkornUniversity in Thailand is in processing. For outstanding graduate students, the department also provides both short-term research/study opportunities and adual-degree PhD program in the world leading institutes, includingUniv. of Central Florida (USA), Friedrich-Schiller-Univ. (Germany), Univ. of Iowa (USA), Univ. of Massachusetts, Amherst (USA), Univ. de Franche-Comte (FRANCE) (dual-degree of PhD), Univ. Paris 13 (FRANCE), Univ. Laval (CANADA), National Univ. of Singapore, Univ. Paul Cezanne(FRANCE) (dual-degree of PhD), The University of New South Wales(AUSTRALIA), and Imperial College London(UK). The department offers scholarships to encourage PhD students to attend top international conferences, so as to broaden their vision and expose themselves to the academic community at the international scale.