Photonics at IIT Madras

Academics

Photonics is at the forefront of a technology revolution in several key areas including telecommunications, sensing, lithography, displays, photovoltaics, data storage, computing and material processing. There is a growing need globally for highly skilled personnel trained in photonics to cater to an ever-rising demand in the above industries.

In India, such a trend has only recently gained momentum - as evidenced by the setting up of a Center for Excellence in Optics at one of the Indian IT major companies due to heavy demand from their global Engineering Services clients. It is expected to be only a matter of time before this trend spreads around in the IT industry, creating a need for highly skilled manpower. In addition, there have been at least half a dozen small scale companies that have been started in the past couple of years in India and they are also anticipated to grow over the next few years. Yet another aspect is the anticipated need for such manpower by Government laboratories such as DRDO, CSIR and ISRO as they push ahead for indigenous development of photonics-related technologies/equipment.

At IIT-Madras, we recognize the need to cater to this interest and select students for different degree programs

  1. M.Tech - course based, with a one year project
  2. M.S. by Research - five courses, but a more detailed project
  3. Ph.D. - specialization in RF or Photonics