Discipline

The discipline of Optical Engineering of University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, led by its PI Zhuang Songlin, the famous optical expert and academician of Chinese Academy of Engineering, can be traced back to the discipline of Optical Instruments established in 1960. In 1981, it was conferred the right to offer master's degree programs. In 1998, it was conferred the right to offer doctoral degree programs. In 2001, it was listed as a key discipline of Shanghai Municipal Education Commission. In 2005, it was listed as key discipline of Shanghai. In 2007, the Optical Engineering Postdoctoral Research Station was set up. In 2009, the discipline was listed as the National Key Discipline (cultivating stage). In the same year, one of the doctoral dissertations of the discipline won the award of the Top 100 National Excellent Doctoral Dissertations. In 2012, another doctoral dissertation won the award nomination of the Top 100 National Excellent Doctoral Dissertations. In 2015, Optical Engineering was approved as “the Peak Discipline” of Shanghai and was rated as excellent in the “Peak Discipline” accreditation in 2017. The discipline ranked 10th (first in Shanghai) in the national discipline accreditation in 2012, and ranked B+ (first in Shanghai) in the fourth-round national discipline accreditation conducted by the Ministry of Education in 2017.

The discipline of Optical Engineering enjoys good facilities, including the Optical Instruments and System Engineering Center of Ministry of Education, Key laboratory of Photoelectric Precision Testing Technology for Machinery Industry, Shanghai Key Laboratory of Modern Optical System, Shanghai Ultra-Precision Optical Machining and Testing Service Platform etc. It is the President unit of China Instrument and Control Society, and the affiliated institution of China National Center for Quality Supervision and Test of Optical Instrument, National Standardization of Optics and Photonics Committee, Committee of Engineering Optics of Chinese Optical Society, Optical Instrument Branch of China Instrument and Control Society, China Instruments Manufactures Association.

The discipline boasts more than 80 faculty, including 81 PhD degree holders; over 30 returned oversea talents, accounting for more than 40% of the faculty; 44 professionals with senior academic titles, accounting for almost 50%; 45 young and middle-aged talents under 40 years old, accounting for more than 50% of the team members. Among all the team members, there is one academician of Chinese Academy of Engineering. 32 are doctoral supervisors.

To keep up with the international development trend of optical engineering, and with the aid of all kinds of talent programs, the discipline is proactively engaged in introducing overseas or domestic outstanding talents. So far, it has successfully introduced many renowned professors. Principal Investigator

Professor Zhuang Songlin is doctoral supervisor and academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering. In 1982, he received his PhD in electronic engineering from the Pennsylvania State University. In 1983, he returned to Shanghai Institute of Optical Instruments, acting as Director of the Institute and senior engineer. From 1988 to 1992, he was Director and researcher of Shanghai Institute of Laser Technology. Since 1995, he has been the Dean of the School of Optical-Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of Shanghai for Science and Technology. He is also Fellow of Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE) and Optical Society of America (OSA), President of Shanghai Institute of Optical Instrument, Director of China Instrument and Control Society, Vice Director of Chinese Society for Optical Engineering, Director of National Standardization of Optics and Photonics Committee, panelist of China Moon Exploration Project, Vice Director of Instrument Science and Technology Education Committee of the Ministry of Education. He has been engaged in the research of applied optics, optical engineering and optoelectronics for a long time, and has won many ministerial level technology advancement awards and several honorary awards. He is the first researcher to develop CAD for optical system in China, and has designed more than 100 kinds of optical systems and instrument. He has presided over and accomplished designing the largest optical instrument software system in China, and achieved his original research results in optimization methods and non-linear models of tolerance for counting the total experiment extremum. He has made initial research in the experimental study of optical image psychophysics. For his comprehensive and systematic research on incoherent optical information processing and rainbow holography, he enjoys the honor as "one of the major contributors of modern white light information processing research". He has proposed a variety of optical methods in the study of phase recovery of complex objects, initiating new direction of research in this field. The CdSe (cadmium selenide) liquid crystal light valve he developed reached the international advanced level at that time. He has made outstanding achievements in the studies of super-resolution optical imaging, grating diffraction vector mode theory, high-speed optical multichannel mode/number transformation, transformation optics and artificial media materials. Over the years, he has supervised more than 20 master and doctoral students, and the graduates have made great contributions in the field of optical engineering at home and abroad. One of the doctoral dissertations under his guidance was selected the National Top 100 Excellent Doctoral Dissertations in 2009 and another was nominated as the candidate dissertation for the National Top 100 Excellent Doctoral Dissertations in 2013. The course Optical Information Technology he taught was rated as the National Excellent Course in 2008.

Over the past three years, the discipline of optical engineering has undertaken more than 30 national projects, including the national 973 projects, 863 projects, national scientific instrument projects, national natural science foundation key projects and general projects, with over 90 million yuan of grants. In recent years, Shanghai Key Laboratory of Modern Optical System has independently developed the world's advanced instruments and equipment in the fields of medical detection, optical detection and body scanners, and established the provincial and ministerial scientific research platform and talent training base. In terms of terahertz time-domain wave spectrum technology, development of microfluidic devices, medical capsule endoscopy and other optical hotspot research, some research achievements have reached the international advanced level.

The discipline attaches great importance to the combination of production, education and research, and has established joint research institutes (laboratories) with OMNIVISION, OCEAN OPTICS (the USA), Quanzhou Wenchuang Technology & Electronics Co., Ltd., and Shanghai Gaojing Imaging Technology Co. Ltd. Five academician workstations have been established, in collaboration with enterprises such as Changzhou Huada Kejie Opto-Electro Instrument Co. Ltd. etc., to boost directly the development of technology for the enterprises. Academician Zhuang Songlin has initiated the Yangtze River Delta Strategic Alliance for Technological Innovation of Scientific Instruments, and Shanghai Alliance for Technological Innovation of Scientific Instruments. In the past three years, research grants from the partnership enterprises exceeded 30 million yuan.

Closely following the mainstream directions of domestic and foreign scientific research, and focusing on the major national strategic needs, the discipline has been engaged in research of basic optics theory, and exploring new optoelectronics technology as well. It has formed five research teams, each having its own characteristics:

1. Terahertz science and technology

    In recent years, the research team has conducted a series of studies on terahertz quasiparticle theory and related core devices, including excitation, propagation, radiation, and transformation of plasmon; and all kind of terahertz devices, such as broadband terahertz radiation source, terahertz isolator, absorber, modulator, filter, and many other terahertz core devices to form theoretical basis for the development of terahertz quantum electromagnetism and the ability to develop various terahertz devices. Research directions include: (1) terahertz quantum electromagnetism theory; (2) terahertz radiation mechanism based on free electron excitation of graphene materials; (3) terahertz physical mechanism of new topological materials; (4) terahertz wave and micro-nano structure interaction mechanism.

2. Ultra-precision optical manufacturing

   At present, the research team mainly focuses on grating and thin film and related fields. Its main research directions include: (1) fabrication and characteristics of various types of gratings (holographic gratings, middle echelon gratings, duplicated gratings, etc.); (2) research on guided mode resonance biosensor based on resonance effect; (3) design and fabrication of various optical thin film components based on high damage threshold; (4) development and research of new optoelectronic functional thin film materials in the fields of touch, display and detection based on new energy; (5) enhancement technology of the wide-band CCD receiver in the ultraviolet band; (6) optical flow control nanometer device technology; (7) ultra-high-speed micro-nano imaging technology; (8) surface plasma device.

3. Nanophotonics

   By precise control of the physical process in the interaction between light field and matter to obtain a new type of light field featuring specific multi-dimensional structure of time and space ( polarization, phase, frequency, amplitude, pulse width and mode field),  the nanophotonics team focuses its research on how the new type light field regulates and controls the atomic, molecular, electronic, and artificial microstructures etc. to discover a new phenomenon and reveal the new physical properties. It also aims at promoting the interdisciplinary application of optics in the fields of information, chemistry, life science and materials. Its main research directions include: (1) theoretical research of light field; (2) study of micro-nano materials; (3) study of interaction between optical field and micro-nano materials; (4) development of nano-photonic devices and instruments.

4. Ultrafast nonlinear optics

    Ultrafast nonlinear optics research mainly includes the generation of femtosecond - the second pulse, and application of THz - visible light - XUV band ultrafast laser technology, ultrafast laser physics and ultrafast spectroscopy, sensitive detection based on ultrafast laser, as well as ultrafast laser technology and information science, material science, life science and other multi-disciplinary application, etc. The main research directions include: (1) ultra-fast laser technology; (2) ultra-fast ultra-strong laser physics; (3) ultra-fast sensitive detection.

5. Medical optics

    Medical optics team focuses on the research and development of photoelectric detection, medical treatment optics, bio-optics, minimally invasive medical devices, modern medical image processing technology, computer-assisted diagnosis technology of medical imaging, medical multimodality imaging technology, optical and electromechanical system integration and control, etc. Main research directions include: (1) the first relocatable "capsule endoscope"; (2) image navigation surgical robotics system; (3) ultrafast cell imaging system; (4) non-invasive glucometer; (5) multimodality imaging technology; (6) fluorescence microscopy and single-cell manipulation technology.