Developing or co-developing two graduate courses:

  • Microfabrication and Thin Film Materials   (Syllabus)
    • This course introduces the physics, chemistry, and practical techniques behind modern micro/nano-fabrication and thin-film materials, from vacuum systems and photolithography to plasma etching and epitaxy.
    • You’ll learn:
      -- Cleanroom process flow and mask design
      -- Thin-film deposition (evaporation, sputtering, CVD, epitaxy)
      -- Plasma etching and pattern transfer
      -- Photoresists, lithography, and micro/nano patterning
      -- Thin-film nucleation, growth, and material properties
      -- Micro/nano-device fabrication and characterization
    • Hands-on labs include:
      Device processing, vacuum systems, thin-film deposition, and lithography workflows.
    • Who should take this?
      Graduate and advanced undergraduate students interested in: microfabrication, semiconductors, nanotechnology, photonics, MEMS, materials science
  • Quantum Optics and Nanophotonics (Weekly Schedule)
    • I co-developed this course with Prof. Ravi Uppu in part as an advanced optics course, a follow-up to Introduction to Optics, with a focus on advanced photonic materials and the quantum properties of light. 

Some recent undergraduate courses I have taught

  • Introduction to Optics (Syllabus)

    The questions we explore in this course include: 

    • What makes a fogbow appear in the sky, and why does the moon sometimes have rings around it?
    • When does light behave like a wave, and when like a photon, and how does its energy and momentum drive solar sails, ignite fusion pellets, excite atoms, and shine from LEDs?
    • How does light propagate through dispersive materials and gases such as air, metals, and dielectrics, and why is the sky blue?
    • How are different types of lenses, prisms, beamsplitters, and fiber optics used to control, guide, and manipulate light?
    • What role does diffraction play in animal vision, and in the performance of telescopes and microscopes?
    • How do interference and polarization give rise to thin-film colors, dichroic filters, and birefringence?
    • How can Fourier optics be used to transform, filter, and analyze images?
    • What is coherence, and why is it essential for interferometers, astronomical imaging, and quantum information systems?
    • How do nonlinear optical effects generate new colors of light and ultrafast pulses?
    • What makes a laser work, and how can we shape and control its beams?
    • This course builds the foundation for understanding natural optical phenomena, designing experiments, and entering research areas such as photonics, imaging, materials science, and quantum technologies.