Creative Teaching Methods

Teaching photonics: the European strategy

Prof. Roberta Ramponi, Department of Physics, Politecnico di Milano, Milano, Italy

Photonics is one of the key enabling technologies and will play a major role in the present century. The photonics industry is continuously growing and it employs a large number of people (almost 300 000 people only in Europe) and at least as many other employees are estimated to work with photonics in industries that use photonics. Moreover, the future success of photonics is based on a high degree of innovation. To meet the consequent need of qualified personnel it is necessary to operate at different levels:

- a large number of students must be attracted towards photonics and this can be achieved only by showing them all the fascination of light and light-related technologies since the first-level education;

- at higher level of education, optics and photonics need more visibility, not only in the curricula in physics and engineering, but also in the application-oriented curricula (science in general, medicine, cultural heritage, etc.);

- at third and fourth-level education, both curricula immediately matching the industry needs (short-term requirements) and curricula with a strong grounding in the physical sciences and mathematics, thus providing the necessary skills for building future innovation (long-term requirements) must be offered. The presentation will review the recommendations of the European Technology Platform Photonics21 to strengthen the role of photonics through training and education.

Roberta Ramponi is Full Professor of Physics at the Politecnico di Milano, and chair of the bachelor and master-of-science degrees in Physics Engineering. She has a long-standing cooperation with the CNR Institute of Photonics and Nanotechnology as associate researcher. Her research activity has included biomedical laser applications and the development of methods and instrumentation for fluorescence measurements. Her current research interests include integrated and nonlinear optics, the development of novel fabrication and characterization techniques for optical waveguides, and micro-optofluidic and photonic devices for applications to telecommunications and to biomedical and environmental sensing. She is co-author of over 130 scientific publications on international journals or as book chapters, she presented about 20 invited talks at International Conferences and holds 3 patents. She served as member of the Scientific Committee of several international conferences. She was the President of the Italian Society of Optics and Photonics (SIOF) in 2003-2004 and of the European Optical Society (EOS) in 2006-2008, now being the Past-President. She is a member of the Board of the Stakeholders of the European Technology Platform Photonics21, and, since January 2010, chair of Work Group 7 “Photonics Research, Education and Training”.

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Graduate Education: The Obvious and the not so Obvious

David V. Plant

Abstract: Graduate education is continually changing. In this context we will use this opportunity to discuss some of the noticeable trends in graduate education, including masters, Ph.D. and post-doctoral programs. We will discuss several issues including: a) effective ways of supervising students; b) how to manage your graduate supervisor; c) publish or perish; d) graduate students as the engine of innovation; e) personal reflections.

David V. Plant received the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from Brown University, Providence, RI, in 1989. From 1989 to 1993, he was a Research Engineer at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA). He has been a Professor and Member of the Photonic Systems Group, the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada, since 1993, and Chair of the Department since 2006. He is the Director and Principal Investigator of the Center for Advanced Systems and Technologies Communications at McGill University. His research interests include optoelectronic-VLSI, analog circuits for communications, electro-optic switching devices, and optical network design including OCDMA, radio-over-fiber, and agile packet switched networks. Dr. Plant has received five teaching awards from McGill University, including most recently the Principal’s Prize for Teaching Excellence. He is a James McGill Professor and was an IEEE Photonics Society Distinguished Lecturer. He was the recipient of the R.A. Fessenden Medal and the Outstanding Educator Award, both from IEEE Canada, and received a NSERC Synergy Award for Innovation. He is a member of Sigma Xi, a Fellow of Optical Society of America, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, the Canadian Academy of Engineering, and the Engineering Institute of Canada.

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Martin Richardson, University of Central Florida, USA

Bio: Martin Richardson graduated from Imperial College, London, in Physics (1964) and gained his Ph.D in Photon Physics from London University in 1967 as the first student to graduate in lasers under the advisement of the late Daniel Bradley. For his thesis he studied the spectral characteristics of laser modes, investigated non-linear optical processes in dense plasmas and developed a new high power dual frequency laser. Although lasers were then still considered ‘a solution looking for a problem’, after the award of the 1964 Nobel Prize to Townes, Prokhorov and Basov for inventing the concept of the laser, many new laser research teams were being created worldwide. Richardson joined one of the first laser groups investigating laser and plasmas in the Division of Gerhardt Herzberg at the National Research Council Laboratories in Ottawa. Mode-locking as a technique for creating ultrashort laser pulses had just been invented, and he was the first to create plasmas in gases by amplified single ultrashort laser pulses. He stayed at NRC until 1979, making contributions to the development of new lasers, including patents on the discharge-pumped CO2 laser that launched the Lumonics corporation, nonlinear optics, mid-IR laser selective dissociation of molecules, the precursor to laser isotope separation, and the development of ultra-fast optical diagnostics. His work on laser-produced plasmas lead to the creation of the first Canadian team focused on laser fusion. Collaborations with the Lebedev Institute resulted in the development of the picosecond streak camera. In 1974 Richardson spent five months in the Soviet Union in the laboratories of Alexandr Prokhorov at the Lebedev Institute. In 1980 he joined the University of Rochester where he worked for nine years as group leader for laser fusion experiments for the then new 24-beam OMEGA laser system at the Laboratory for Laser Energetics. He also held an adjunct faculty in the Institute of Optics. While at Rochester he was also involved in x-ray laser and laser-plasma x-ray spectroscopy investigations. In 1990 he and William Silfvast established the Laser Plasma Laboratory at CREOL, the Center of Research in Electro-Optics & Lasers at UCF, developing research programs in ultrafast laser development, laser-plasma studies, EUV/X-ray lithography and microscopy and laser materials processing. These research activities expanded to include femtosecond laser structuring of materials, laser spectroscopy and sensing and high-intensity laser filamentation studies in the atmosphere. In 2003 he was appointed the Northrop Grumman Professor of X-ray Photonics as part of major $24M donation to UCF. He was made a Trustee Chair of the University in 2006, and appointed as the first and founding director of the Townes Laser Institute in 2007. Professor Richardson has throughout his career taken an intense interest in the education of his students. In Canada he introduced schemes through which students from Canadian universities could study for their Ph.D’s at NRC-Canada. He directs an NSF International REU program, and has initiated an Atlantis program for students to obtain a international MS degree between UCF and the universities of Bordeaux, Jena and Clemson. Some of his students gain co-tutelle Ph.D degrees with the University of Bordeaux. He is particularly interested in advancing science in under-developed countries, and in enabling equal rights for women through science. Professor Richardson has held visiting scientific positions at the Max Born Institute in Berlin, the Institute for Laser Engineering (ILE) Osaka University, the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics in Garching, and other institutions in Australia, Canada, France, Qatar and the former Soviet Union. He has published over 400 scientific articles in professional scientific journals, and has presented numerous invited and plenary talks. He holds ~ 20 patents, with several pending and has chaired many international conferences including IQEC, ICHSP, and several SPIE meetings. He is a former Associate Editor of JQE, a recipient of the Schardin Medal, and a Fellow of OSA.