Research Fields

Optics is the science of the generation, propagation, reception and display of electromagnetic radiation in a wide range of wavelengths from microwaves, infrared, visible light, ultraviolet to X-rays and gamma rays, and the interaction with matter, with emphasis on the infrared to ultraviolet wavelengths. The advent of lasers has made optics one of the most active fields in modern physics. Optics relates closely to materials science, nanotechnology, astrophysics, atomic and molecular physics physics, quantum physics and fiber-optic communication.  Theoretical optics shares important concepts and techniques with theoretical atomic molecular physics, condensed matter physics. Experimental optics uses techniques such as laser, microwave, X-rays, photonic quantum state such as entangled state and squeezed state, interferometer, single photon detector that are also widely used in many other branches of science.

Members of optics at USTC are carrying out cutting-edge research in a wide range of areas, including micro-nano optics that manipulates optical field with micro-nano structures, nonlinear optics that generates entangled photons with nonlinear crystals, quantum optics that operates the quantum states of atom system or condensed matter system with laser or the quantum states of photonic system to implement quantum information processes, such as quantum key distribution, quantum memory and quantum communications, quantum simulating, quantum computing and quantum sensing.