Program Overview

Overview

The field of photonics is rapidly growing, with applications in various industries such as optical telecommunications, medical imaging, renewable energy, and environmental sensing. Photonics graduates will possess skills in theory, design, fabrication, and laboratory practice, placing them at the forefront of these industries.

Requirements

Admission to a graduate degree-seeking program in the ECEE department is not required for students pursuing the certificate. Graduate students pursuing a photonics certificate are not required to matriculate into the program subplan through a master's degree, although degree-seeking students enrolled in the program will be given course registration priority.

Required Courses

Nine credit hours of graduate-level coursework, made up of any three of the six core photonics courses, will be required to complete the certificate program. Students must earn at least a B in each course and a minimum GPA of 3.0 is required to remain in good academic standing.

• Photonics Core Courses:
  • ECEN 5616: Optoelectric System Design (3 credit hours)
  • ECEN 5606: Optics Laboratory (3 credit hours)
  • ECEN 5156: Physical Optics (3 credit hours)
  • ECEN 5696: Fourier Optics (3 credit hours)
  • ECEN 5626: Active Optical Devices (3 credit hours)
  • ECEN 5345: Introduction to Solid State Physics (3 credit hours)
• Total Credit Hours: 18

Program Details

Photonics is the electrical engineering sub-discipline concerned with the generation, modulation, radiative or guided transmission, sensing, and detection of optical-frequency signals. Application areas include optical telecommunications and instrumentation, optical computing and data transmission, medical imaging, renewable energy, and environmental sensing. While some of these industries are mature, photonics continues to rapidly grow into emerging technologies such as quantum computing and cryptography, optogenetics, and virtual reality.

Photonics courses at CU Boulder engage high-caliber students from around the world. The courses typically run at a fast pace, often involving a mixture of fundamental theory, design in relevant industry standard CAD tools, and individual projects. For more information, visit the department website.