Tuesday,
July 23, 2002
Mastering Optics at UNM
By Olivier Uyttebrouck
Journal Staff Writer
The University of New Mexico
will offer a new master's degree program this fall intended to help New Mexico's
budding optics industry develop a skilled work force.
A key element of the degree program is an industrial internship
that gives students college credit for work at area optics companies, said
Arthur Guenther, professor of electrical engineering and physics astronomy.
Optical scientists and engineers find new uses for light
and lasers to build devices that are smaller, cheaper and more accurate than
existing technologies.
"Optics is going to be in the next economic driver
in technology," said Guenther, a founder of the New Mexico Optics Industry
Association, which represents about 160 optics companies.
The field has created technology such as fiber-optics communications
and compact discs. It promises improvements in devices used in computers,
medical imaging systems, communications and defense.
New Mexico is poised to benefit from the growth of the
optics industry because the state hosts an abundance of optics research, Guenther
said. UNM is one of five U.S. universities with an academic program in optics.
Also, the national laboratories are centers of optics research, he said.
UNM has offered a doctorate in optics science since 1993.
The school ultimately plans to offer a bachelor's degree in optics.
Marek Osinski, UNM professor of electrical and computer
engineering, and Sudhakar Prasad, a professor of physics and astronomy, led
the effort to create the degree program.
In addition to the industrial internships, students can
work in a variety of UNM research programs.
For example, Osinski said he and students are developing
a computer chip that one day could replace today's bulky and expensive aircraft
navigational equipment.
The device, called a semiconductor gyro, uses laser light
to perform the work of gyroscopes long used for aircraft navigation. Modern
aircraft use laser-driven gyros, but Osinski's project would shrink the device
to the size of a computer chip, greatly reducing its size, weight and power
requirements.
Such a device could be used in satellites, aircraft and
even cars, he said. The project is funded by an approximately $1 million grant
from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
Osinski oversees the project and others at UNM's Center
for High Technology Materials, which contains extensive labs, including a
clean-room, for developing new kinds of semiconductors.
For more information, contact Osinski at 272-7801.
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