Graduate Education

Co-Advisorship
International Research Semester Option
Speaker Series and Visiting Researcher-in-Residence
Industrial Internship Program

The required core courses constitute most of the curriculum. In addition to the physical sciences core of graduate level quantum mechanics and condensed matter physics, our new computational electrodynamics course will be developed specifically for this program. This course will have an accompanying Nanophotonics CAD Studio where students design nanophotonics components and determine their properties. In addition, a comprehensive biology course tailored for graduate level students with a physical sciences background, Systems Physiology, will be included as part of the core course offerings. This course will provide a broad and general background for applied physics students interested in working in the area of Nanophotonics in living systems. For experimentalists, two courses in Nanofabrication are offered as part of the core curriculum; one that focuses on clean room fabrication, and the other that focuses on chemical synthesis of nanostructures. For theorists, a choice between a course in Applied Quantum Mechanics and Molecular Spectroscopy and Group Theory is offered. This core is rounded out by two other requirements, a course in Ethics and Responsible research conduct (taught by Professor Neal Lane) and a biweekly seminar entitled Topics in Nanophotonics, where students and faculty informally discuss their research results and participate in a Nanophotonics journal club, an essential element for education in this rapidly developing field. The Topics in Nanophotonics seminar will be required during their entire course of study, and will serve to develop an affinity with the current literature as well as communications skills, as the students will be periodically scheduled to present and discuss their research progress. This seminar, not yet listed as a course at Rice, has been in existence unofficially for the past two years, is largely student-organized, and is currently attended by students from seven nanophotonics research groups (Halas, Nordlander, Hafner, Johnson, Drezek, Bayazitoglu, Massoud). We have found that this interdisciplinary group meeting does not substitute for the weekly meetings of individual groups, and that the bi-weekly timetable enhances meeting continuity, allowing students to make significant enough progress between meetings to enhance the  momentum of the entire group.

Depending on the background and training of students, a variety of electives are offered. Each student may take two electives, or more, if they have satisfied the requirements of one or more of the core courses prior to enrolling in the program. Alternative course offerings for electives may be chosen, depending on the interests of the student, pending approval by the IGERT oversight committee. As part of the Texas Medical Center, Rice graduate students may also enroll in classes at other member institutions of the Texas Medical Center, including: Baylor College of Medicine, U. T. M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, and the University of Texas Health Sciences Center. Upon receiving appropriate interinstituional approval, courses may also be taken at our international partner universities. Graduate students will petition the IGERT oversight committee for course substitutions and waivers which will be considered on a case-by-case basis.

Co-Advisorship: A key aspect of our proposed Nanophotonics program is co-advisorship of graduate students.23 Although this is a significant departure from the norm of typical graduate programs, the practice of having two thesis advisors working jointly with a graduate student has been very successful within our initial efforts in interdisciplinary Nanophotonics research at Rice. While this structure has ensured that the student receives the interdisciplinary training needed to have a successful career in this emerging field, it also has encouraged increased interactions between faculty in the  various participating departments, resulting in new collaborations and further expansion of interdisciplinary research. In general, we have found that combining theoretical and experimental advisors has greatly enhanced the depth of understanding, insight, and design of experiments. In addition to the increased breadth of technical input on a project that results from having two advisors in differing disciplines, this approach also exploits the outstanding track record of several IGERT faculty participants in the recruitment, retention and development of women and minority PhD students (i.e., effectively eliminating all-male groups). Co-advising will effectively disseminate the all-inclusive culture of those research groups and ultimately modify the institutional culture, providing an environment that successfully recruits, retains, produces and ultimately places outstanding women and minority PhD researchers in the field of Nanophotonics.

International Research Semester Option: An important aspect of the proposed Nanophotonics program is the establishment of collaborative links between the researchers at Rice and other outstanding Nanophotonics programs in research laboratories worldwide, by establishing a research semester abroad option. Through a series of initial communications and discussions we have established an international “Nanophotonics Network” of research laboratories in Chalmers University in Gothenburg, Sweden; Imperial College, London, UK; Osaka University, Japan; Dublin City University, Ireland; and Universite de Montpellier, France. Our program will offer a variety of collaborative projects with researchers at these institutions for all IGERT students wishing to participate in this aspect of the program. (Because students with families may not wish to participate in a research semester abroad, this aspect of our program will be optional for   students with family constraints). Each University site has an official host that serves as the point contact for the IGERT program, but each site has numerous researchers in the area of nanophotonics (or in the case of Universite de Montpellier, materials chemistry-based fabrication techniques). Our international hosts will submit brief (1-page) proposals for projects that our students will participate in during their semester at the foreign institution that will be posted on our IGERT website. Students will submit their project and site preferences via the website and the IGERT oversight committee will negotiate any conflicts. Based on the success of this research-only pilot program, we hope to establish a full two-way young scientist exchange program bringing researchers from these institutions to Rice, where students can officially matriculate in courses offered at their foreign host institution. This program will be significantly enhanced by collaborations between the simulation and modeling efforts and experimental efforts across this international network, which can be pursued remotely with little travel expense. This program aspect offers the unique opportunity to learn from a variety of research approaches during graduate training, and for the degree candidates to establish international research connections themselves which may enhance their professional development as their careers progress.

Speaker Series and Visiting Researcher-in-Residence: An important enriching aspect of our proposed IGERT program will be a student-coordinated visiting speaker series, where leading nanophotonics researchers will be invited to campus to present a research seminar and interact with graduate students. Such speaker programs are already successful elements of many of the currently funded IGERT programs nationally. A visiting researcher-in-residence will also be sponsored who will teach a topical seminar in nanophotonics for the IGERT participants during a one semester residency period.

Industrial Internship Program: Another important component of our Nanophotonics IGERT is an industrial internship program, which will typically be attended in the summer of our student’s second or third year. This program will expose our graduate students to research in industry in a variety of fields and contexts where their education is particularly suited and valuable. Experiences range from the large corporate research environments to early stage startup companies, all with a common interest in developing and applying Nanophotonics innovations. Industrial partners are: IBM Research, at Almaden, Yorktown, and Zurich Laboratories; Becton-Dickinson research in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, a leader in medical diagnostics; and three smaller industrial research environments: Quantum Dot, Corporation, in Hayward, CA; Nanospectra Biosciences, Inc, in Houston, TX, and an early stage startup company, NanoComposix, in San Diego, CA. Projects will be either experimental or theoretical in nature, and may be either biological or nonbiological in application. Industrial sites will post projects on the IGERT website and the appropriate matches will be made between student and project, with conflicts eliminated by the IGERT Oversight Committee.