Overview | Honours | Summary of Courses

Offered By:	ANU Joint Colleges of Science
Academic Contact:	Dr Daniel Shaddock
Areas of Interest:	Physics

Corequisite major: Physics or Theoretical Physics

Description:

The Optics specialisation builds on majors in either Physics or Theoretical Physics to provide a deeper mastery of Optics.

Learning Goals:

Students who complete the Optics specialisation will be able to:

1. Describe and explain the fundamental principles of optics.
2. Apply the fundamental principles of optics to solve problems, including those likely to be encountered in future careers. Such problems may involve ambiguity and uncertainty and require the application of multiple principles.
3. Describe and explain specific examples of how optics is applied to benefit people.
4. Describe critical experiments in the history of optics and explain how they led to revisions of our theoretical descriptions of optics.
5. Use mathematical, computational and experimental skills to solve conceptual and quantitative problems in optics.
6. Analyse unfamiliar optical systems and provide order-of-magnitude estimates of quantities. This includes a knowledge of basic optical constants and key equations.
7. Be both creative and rigorous in the design and construction of scientific investigations of optical systems.
8. Effectively communicate optics based analyses to expert and non-expert audiences.

Requirements

This specialisation requires the completion of 24 units, which must include:

A total of 12 units from the following compulsory courses:

PHYS2017  Waves and Optics

PHYS3057  Optical Physics

A total of 12 units chosen from the following 3000 level courses, not already included in a major:

PHYS2016  Electromagnetism

PHYS3031  Atomic Physics: Atom-light interactions

PHYS3051  Microphotonics, Biophotonics & Nanophotonics

PHYS3058  Work Experience in Photonics

PHYS3060  Fibre Optic Communication Systems

Advice to Students:

Either the Advanced Physics or Optics specialisation is recommended for those planning on taking the fourth year honours degree in Physics.

Students should seek further course advice from the academic convener of the Advanced Physics specialisation.A specialisation in Advanced Physics must be taken in conjunction with a Physics or Theoretical Physics major.

The information published on the Study at ANU 2012 website applies to the 2012 academic year only. All information provided on this website replaces the information contained in the Study at ANU 2011 website.