About the Course

Overview

Organised jointly by the Physics Department of the School of Engineering & Physical Sciences at Heriot-Watt University and School of Physics & Astronomy at the University of St. Andrews. The joint involvement of the Departments of Physics at St. Andrews and Heriot-Watt Universities makes available to students the combined expertise and diversity of equipment at two Universities renowned for research and teaching in optoelectronics. In addition full-time students spend three months at the cutting edge, undertaking a research project at a photonics company.

The primary aim of the course is to provide specialist postgraduate training in modern optics and semiconductor physics, tailored to the needs of the photonics industrial sector. The secondary aim is to provide the education required for those wishing to continue in academia on PhD research projects in photonics.

Graduates from the course will have gained in-depth understanding of the fundamental properties of the optoelectronic materials and practical experience of the technology and operation of a wide range of laser and semiconductor devices.  They will additionally have experience of research in an industrial environment and have received training in the transferable skills required in such an environment.

Course Structure

The first semester of the course is taught at St Andrews University with the second taught at Heriot-Watt University.

The course consists of the following modules:

• Semester 1
• Photonics Experimental Laboratory 1
• Laser Physics
• Displays and Nonlinear Optics
• Photonics Applications
• Semester 2
• Photonics Experimental Laboratory 2
• Semiconductor Optoelectronics
• Modern Optics
• Fibre-Optic Communications
• Summer
• Research Project taken in Industry

Duration

Normally 1 year, with part-time participation possible, typically over 2 years.

Entry Requirements

A First or Second Class Honours Degree in an engineering discipline or in the physical or chemical sciences. The degree can be from a British or overseas university. Different degrees, together with relevant industrial experience, will be considered.

Comments from Previous Students

• The labs experiments were very useful
• One strength of the MSc is the variety of subjects
• The Industrial project placement was very challenging and useful
• The best aspects of the course were the practical work and summer placement.
• I think the course was great!

Employment and Industrial Links

Graduate Destinations

This one-year advanced course provides postgraduate training tailored to the needs of the Photonics industry. Graduates gain an understanding of the fundamental properties of optoelectronic materials and optical fibres, and experience of the technology and operation of a wide range of laser and semiconductor devices appropriate to the telecommunications, information technology and manufacturing industries. The majority of the present course go into the Photonics Industry, either directly or following PhD research. Employment prospects for our graduates are excellent at present and a few examples of graduate destinations are as follows: Edinburgh Instruments, Intense Photonics, Selex, BAe system, Coherent Scotland.

Industrial Project Opportunities

All students undertake projects at various UK industries.  A few examples of these organisations are:

• Ametek
• BAe Systems
• CST Global
• Intense Photonics
• NPL
• Photonics Innovation Centre
• Tera View
• Thales Optronics
• Selex
• Sharp laboratories

Course Industrial Advisory Board

The development of the course is informed by an industrial advisory board comprising delegates from the following companies:

• Ametek
• BAe Systems
• Daimler
• Edinburgh Instruments
• Elforlight
• Gemfire
• Mantis
• QinetiQ
• Thales Optronics
• Renishaw
• Selex
• St Microelectronics

About the Course Director

Professor Ajoy Kar has 20 years of experience in studies of the nonlinear optical properties of materials and their applications. Ajoy hails from Shillong in Meghalaya (India) which is known as the Scotland of the East. After completing his MSc in Delhi he joined the University of Essex where he developed his interest in Lasers and Nonlinear Optics. He started at Heriot-Watt as a postdoc and at present he is a Professor in the department of Physics. His current projects involve large gain EDWAs, ultrafast all-optical switching in novel chalcogenide glasses, ultrafast optical nonlinearities in II-VI semiconductors, generation and propagation of white light continuum through atmosphere for novel LIDAR applications. The projects are of both fundamental and applied in nature