Photonics

Photonics is multidisciplinary with strong roots in physics and with a rapidly increasing range of engineering applications in information technology, energy, lighting, manufacturing and materials processing, metrology and sensing, medicine and biotechnology etc.
The course Photonics is set up as a course for the last year of a bachelor program. Its ambition is to introduce most of the basic concepts used in photonics as well as to teach some basic design approaches. Furthermore it will confront the student with a (limited) amount of factual knowledge about "real-life" photonic materials, components and systems. The subjects that are taught are: geometrical optics, scalar waves, gaussian beams, waveguide optics, semiconductor light sources, lighting, displays and solar cells.

Learning objectives:
1) Describe and calculate photometric properties of light sources and displays.

2) Describe an optical system made from lenses and reflectors and calculate its properties using geometric optics.

3) Describe an optical system made from lenses and reflectors and calculate its properties using scalar wave optics.

4) Describe an optical system made from lenses and reflectors and calculate its properties using Gaussian optics.

5) Describe the operational principles of optical waveguides and calculate their properties.

6) Describe light matter interaction using the Einstein coefficients.

7) Describe the application and operational principles of the following photonic devices: laser, semiconductor laser, detector, display and solar cell.

8) Design a light source (laser, semiconductor laser, LED) or deduce its characteristics given a set of phenomenological parameters.

9) Design a light detector or deduce its characteristics given a set of phenomenological parameters.

10) Explain the fabrication steps of semiconductor based photonic devices.

All learning objectives are assessed in tutorials and homework.
Objectives 1-4 are tested in interim exam 1. Objectives 5-9 are tested in interim exam 2.