Building

Photonics Technology and Camden County College have a bright history together. A mission of Camden County College has always been to be an educational leader in preparing students for the contemporary workplace. This mission has resulted in constant support of the Photonics department.

The Laser Electro-Optics Technology program was founded in 1976 with Dr. Fred P. Seeber as its coordinator. At that time, it was only the fourth such program in the United States. The program started small with limited equipment and space. The classes and labs occupied just a few rooms in one of the college's buildings. After years of success and with the explosive growth of the Photonics industry throughout the 1980's, the faculty saw the need for expansion of the programs and the facilities. In 1984 the college offered the country's first community college program in Fiber Optics. In 1989, with funding from the National Science foundation and New Jersey Higher Education, the Laser Institute of Technology and Educational Research (LITER) broke ground and two year's later the building was open to students and faculty. Today Laser Electro-Optics and Fiber-Optic Technology programs, now Photonics Technology, serve approximately 80 students each year and are premier curricula of their kind in the nation. Graduates of the Laser Electro-Optics curriculum and the Fiber Optics option are in great demand nationwide and receive excellent salaries as a result of their intensive training in these areas.

The LITER building is a unique facility. Of the more than 1100 community colleges in the United States CCC is the only one having a building that is solely dedicated to Photonics education and research. In New Jersey only Princeton University and Camden County College have such facilities. The building houses 15 laboratories with industry grade equipment, study areas, a traditional classroom, and a large lecture hall/classroom. The building is designed with safety and convenience in mind. The laboratories are separated into three wings: Low-Power Wing, High-Power, and Fiber-Optic Wing. The Low-Power Wing is designed for students in courses of Optics, Optics Measurements, etc. that work with low power lasers and optical equipment. The High-Power Wing is equipped with all types of medical and industrial high-power lasers and is generally intended for second year students with a strong Photonics safety background. The Fiber-Optic Wing houses all fiber optic and communications equipment for both first- and second-year courses. Over the past three years the fiber optic wing has received a major upgrade including over 1 million dollars worth of state-of-the-art equipment through the New Jersey High-Tech. Workforce Grant and industry equipment donations. Two new laboratories have been added specializing in optical communication system testing.

Below are some various pictures of the labs, students, faculty, and equipment.

Click on the thumbnail to enlarge

	Alignment of a Ti:Sapphire Laser system		Ceremony for the 2004 Photonics High School Competition
	Splicing Optical fiber into a splice enclosure used in high speed communication systems		Photonics Coordinator, Dr. Khazan, working on a lab experiment with Intro to Technical Careers Students
	Studying laser beam properties with an Optical Spectrum Analyzer		Building an optical gyroscope for the Fiber Optic project course
	One of the labs in the fiber optic wing		Fiber Optic Professor, Carl Durkow, demonstrating lightguiding with a fiber optic cable connected to a laser