Optics program in the physics department at San Jose State University

Abstract

The San Jose State University Physics Department, located in Silicon Valley, provides students with a high quality education in optics and provides local high-tech industry and government laboratories with a partner for optics- related research and development projects. There are approximately 50 undergraduate majors and 20 graduate (M.S.) students in the Department. Core courses leading to the B.S. in Physics are offered with upper division courses in Modern Optics, Lasers and Applications, Advanced Optics Lab, Advanced Instrumentation Lab, and Individual Studies as well as graduate courses in Electro-optics, Graduate Optics, Optical Metrology, and Laser Spectroscopy. Graduates are well prepared to enter the lasers and optics industry or go onto graduate school. A 4000 square-foot lab in the Science Building houses the Institute for Modern Optics, an organized research unit in the College of Science. One of the major goals of the Institute is to facilitate collaborative research between the local optics industry and the faculty and students at SJSU. The Department is presently developing a new biophotonics lab for single molecule studies with a dual beam optical tweezers already operational. A National Science Foundation Research Experience for Undergraduates Program grant provides research support for undergraduates.