Optomechanical Engineering

Master of Science

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Quick Facts

Credits Required: 32

Cost Per Credit: $1330.00

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Wyant College of Optical Sciences

Program Details

The Optomechanical Engineering (OME) MS option is an emphasis area, or sub-plan, of the general MS in Optical Sciences program. This multidisciplinary educational program is designed to provide you with advanced training in the optomechanical field, which is concerned with the manufacture, stability, packaging, and integration of optical systems.

Optical systems typically have stringent demands and tolerances to meet specifications. Therefore, students with training in Optomechanical Engineering are highly sought after for fields including space instrumentation, satellite development, defense and security, augmented reality, consumer electronics, biomedical device development, and all fields interfacing with optical systems.

The OME option requires completing a specific set of core courses and restricts additional elective and lab courses. This emphasis also involves the completion of an MS Thesis or MS Report on a topic relevant to optomechanical engineering or completing an approved technical writing course. A faculty committee must approve the thesis or report topic before working on the thesis or report to ensure that it meets the requirements of the OME emphasis area.

For this emphasis area, the diploma will state “Master of Science in Optical Sciences with an emphasis in Optomechanical Engineering.”

Students employed in the Optics industry can complete a thesis working on a project with their company through the Optical Sciences MS – Industrial Track program. This track is available to students interested in pursuing research toward an MS in collaboration with their company.

View detailed program information

Must have completed Calculus I, II, and III, including Vector Calculus, Differential Equations, and Linear Algebra.

*Residents of some U.S. Territories may not be eligible. Please see our Eligibility & State Authorization page for more information.

Courses

This emphasis requires a set of required, elective, and laboratory courses. Students may complete the program with a Thesis, MS Report, or as a Technical Writing track. The total units of coursework required for completion vary between 32 and 35, according to the track selected. Courses for this program include:

Learn about rays and wavefronts, Snell's Law, mirror and prism systems, Gaussian imagery and cardinal points, paraxial ray tracing, stops and pupils, illumination systems, elementary optical systems, optical materials, dispersion, systems of thin prisms, system analysis using ray trace code, chromatic aberrations and achromatization, monochromatic aberrations, ray fans, spot diagrams, balancing of aberrations, aspheric systems.

This lab covers optical systems such as Gaussian optics, aberrations, radiometry, sources, detectors, and optical engineering.

In this lab, you will examine the measurement of paraxial properties of optical components, refractive index, surface figure, and surface finish.

This course covers optical materials, optomechanical design principles, lens, mirror mounting, tolerancing, and specification of optical components.

Principles that were taught in OPTI 421/521 (Introductory Optomechanical Engineering) will be applied to develop designs and to perform detailed analyses of optomechanical systems.

Examine kinematic and dynamic analysis of mechanical systems in planar motion, numerical methods, and use of computer programs in analysis.

This course examines the fundamentals of 2D and 3D display technologies (e.g., human visual system, color and depth perception, color theory and metrology, and state-of-the-art display technologies), display performance evaluation and calibration, and display research frontiers.