Novel educational approach to some aspects of optical information processing

Faculty members involved in the optics program in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Syracuse University have diverse research interests. We use this diversity in our teaching methods/materials to educate future engineers. Our instructional methods, both classroom and laboratory, are designed to provide physical insight of optical devices and systems. Our electro-optics laboratory is equipped with three optical benches, four helium neon lasers, a Nd:YAG laser, optical peripheral equipment, a variety of acousto-optic signal/image processing set up, and related electronic equipment of reasonable sophistication. We have offered several graduate level courses primarily based on recent research. These courses cover various aspects of optics namely Fourier optics, nonlinear optics, quantum electronics, electro-optic integrated circuits and devices, fiber optic, etc. In addition, we have offered a course in optical database machines. In the future we will offer a undergraduate course in applied optics. In what follows, we describe, in detail, some of the approaches we have developed which help students to gain physical understanding of complicated optical physics, including illustrative classroom demonstration of optical processing and the realization of optical logic operations.