NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION GRANT - PHOTONICS EDUCATION

The Center for Applied Competitive Technologies (CACT) at Irvine Valley College will be participating in a two-year Advanced Technological Education (ATE) grant from the National Science Foundation. The grant will support planning for a regional center with emphasis on photonics education. Photonics is a new discipline that replaces conventional electronics by using light to perform functions that once were the domain of electrons.

“Photonics offers faster, smaller, cheaper technologies to address critical problems in our increasingly impacted global society. Existing electronics technology is reaching its limit,” said Larry DeShazer, director of CACT. The photonics industry grew out of the laser and optics industry and is fueled by two factors. First, the number of industries using photonics applications has increased, with virtually every major industry now using photonics. Second, the number of photonics applications within each industry has become more complex and expansive. Some of the more familiar industries include healthcare, telecommunications, homeland security, military defense, and semiconductor manufacturing, where photonics is utilized from laser surgery to chemical sensors to semiconductor wafer fabrication. Photonics is a field that students can enter with a certificate or an associate degree, and is an excellent way to bring people into engineering and science fields.