Secure Your Career!

Camden County College's Photonics Department provides comprehensive training of technicians in lasers, optics, and fiber optics - the industry and technology of the 21st century. Our department offers one- and two-year programs leading to exciting and rewarding careers, or to a continuation in a four-year college.

Photonics is the science and technology directly involved with generation, manipulation, transport, and use of electromagnetic energy. Encompassing the fields of optics,lasers,and electronics, photonics is a major technology in diverse industries such as communication, medicine, transportation, public safety, national defense, entertainment, aerospase, and environmental monitoring.

Applications of Photonics have been growing with enormous pace over the past twenty years. For all these years the Department has been providing state-of-the-art training in the Laser/Electro-Optic and Fiber-Optic Technology. Both, Laser/Optic and Fiber-Optic technicians graduating from our programs recieve an Associate in Applied Science Degree and have outstanding career opportunities in Optical, Laser, and Telecommunications areas.

Laser/Electro-Optic Technology
Students in the Laser/Electro-Optic Technology receive all necessary technical theory, expert knowledge of different laser systems and safety regulations, and hands-on experience that allow them to work in manufacturing, maintenance, trouble-shooting, alignment, and testing of laser/optic equipment.

Fiber Optic Technology
The Fiber-Optic program provides a working knowledge of the now booming fiber optic industry, including various markets, manufacturer specifications, and product vendors; presents hands-on training in connecting, testing, and trouble-shooting optical cables and networks; and provides technical theory covering, aspects of optical waveguides, fiber optic sensors, and accompanying equipment.

Explosive growth of fast optical communications and the urgent need in skilled workforce to ensure the ongoing massive replacement of copper cables by fiber optic networks has prompted our department to launch in 2002 a one-year certificate program, "Fiber Optic Technical Specialist". Graduates become certified as a Fiber Optic Technician from both Camden County College along with the Fiber Optic association, FOA,where our program is currently recognized as an approved training institution. Graduates from this program receive extensive training in fiber optic installation, testing, maintenance, and trouble-shooting skills that make them irreplaceable for telephone, cable, and other communications companies.This state-of-the-art program is sponsored by the $775,000 New Jersey High Technology Workforce Excellence grant awarded to our department. The grant has assisted Camden County College in expanding its already very successful fiber optics program and enhancing the Photonics programs, bringing them to the leading edge of this quickly progressing and innovating area.

Lasers are everywhere nowadays. Lasers are used to communicate, to determine how far away things are, to be able to record and retrieve information, and to fix not only machines but the human body as well. As a result, professionals in this area are extensively sought and they are among the highest paid in American industry. In the latest report from a leading Photonics publication, Photonics Spectra, the median salary of a Photonics Technician has now risen to $55000.

For students interested in a four-year degree, the Photonics Department has an articulation agreement with the State University of New York Institute of Technology at Utica/Rome; Rowan, Rutgers (Camden),Drexel, NJIT universities along with other universities accept our credits.