PhD - Doctor of Philosophy in Photonics

The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

The photonics research activities at the Department of Electrical Engineering covers a wide range of science and technology applications, including specialty optical fiber designs and fabrications within silica and polymer materials, fiber lasers, fiber sensors and their applications in gas sensing and structural and condition-monitoring, long-haul optical fiber communications and short-distance links for data center and big data applications, laser nano-/micro-fabrication technologies, lab on a chip, and flexible optoelectronic devices. The Photonics Research Centre hosted by the Department houses many state-of-the-art facilities which include:

• Fiber drawing towers for fabrication of specialty silica/plastic optical fibers
• mask less exposure platforms for fabrication of micro-structures and devices
• Several laser-based platforms for making gratings and other micro-structures in fibers and waveguides, and
• High-speed optical fiber transmission equipment (supports Tbps over 1,000’s km) for research in high-performance optical fiber communication systems.

The Department is also involved in many industrial R&D projects:

• designed and built the world’s first city-wide optical fiber sensing networks to monitor operation condition of trains of all urban lines in Hong Kong,
• developed 100 Gb/s and 1Tb/s optical fiber transmission systems with Huawei Co. Ltd, NEC and Coming

Course Structure:

Three years (for students admitted on the basis of a Master's degree with a significant research component);
Four years (for students admitted on the basis of a Master's degree or a Bachelor's degree).