How do you make practical use of light to solve problems?

Engineers are wielding light as a tool to speed up the flow of information through fiber optic cables, study the modulation of brain circuits, detect cancer and infectious diseases, improve chips for machine learning and high-performance computing. Photonics and optical systems projects require sophisticated advances in multiple fields of research, such as laser and nonlinear optics, optoelectronics, quantum computation, and spectroscopy.

 

Photonics center

A Hub of Collaboration

The Photonics Center houses 60 faculty, 15 staff, and more than 100 grad students and postdocs. “You can think of the Center as an umbrella for research where light plays a pivotal role,” says Photonics Director Tom Bifano. “That doesn’t necessarily mean that your research is on making an optical system or understanding photonics better—it might be about treating cancer, and that cancer research requires you to use a light-based approach.”

The Photonics Center brought in $37 million in grants last year.

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Shedding Light on Solutions

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Interdisciplinary Experts

Faculty in this area have a wide range in expertise. Below are just a few.

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