MBE and Fiber Optics/Lasers

Look at magazine Photonics Spectra www.photonicsspectra.com for more prospects in this area.

I can't advise you on job prospects in the USA; however, I spent 10 years in the U.K. fibre optics business (4 at Plessey Optical Devices in the midlands and 6 at Standard Telephone & Cable (STC) in Devon). The latter became the World Centre of Excellence for F.O. when it changed to Northern Telecomm. I loved every minute of working in that field - so I say JUST GO FOR IT! Sadly there is no such work in Australia where I now live and am working in solar power R&D.

I agree with Astur.

Optics for communication is research based job and if you like doing it then it becomes a lot of interest other than good future prospects in engineering. It is not an easy field and requires scientific and mathematical background and lot learning to make sense of things that are new for you in the field. That is what makes it interesting.

What a smart kid. Only 18 and know where to ask a question like this. If your a guy, I want you to meet my daughter, if your a girl, well, I have a son.

As an engineer, I've been around long enough to know that if the primary work in a field is research, then by the time you get out of college, the primary work will be application.

Of course I can't predict the future, I'm just relaying what I think will happen.

Good luck to you.

Do you have pics? just kidding. Thanks for the replys. I'm working with a company now to get into the MBE dept. and possibly R&D. I'd rather work in the electronics side of R&D because I have a really good foundation already, but it looks like MBE would be a stabler job and its a specialty (can't make laser systems without making the diode first, lol).

Matt

Photonics electronics is of great interest to the world and you can find www.spie.org organization just for that. Also www.laurin.com and www.oceanoptics.com may be of interest to you. IEEE is very active in Photonics devices and fiber optics. You have photonics amplifiers which is different from electronics and you also have electronics world. This field is highly mixed type. Bell Labs have done their best to take communication to 2.4 Terra Hertz so you have greatest future if you wish to get into optical communications. This fieled takes beyond the limits of electronics and where the electronics ends, the photonics starts. You not only play with electrons but also with Photons, the ultimate energy quanta with wonderful properties in matter. You can give shape to pulse, create signature by splitting the pulse and write with signature on CDROM and do best possible in imaging with billion frames per second. You can also create an optical elevator for the shuttle to send it into space without power source inside and be a part of NASA research. Photonics with remain field of interest to all people irrespective of their area of research. No one can escape admiring power of Photons. Electrons can watch them but can't follow them. They are back seater for Photons. Look at Quantum dots, Hole burning, and new possibilities are quantum computing. Reading quantum states of trapped electrons and electrons in supper motion is made possible using photons without wires. Supper cooled atoms by laser has just started the game.

People should dream their future when they are very young. I greatly appreciate such thinking. It does not matter who will do what in real life, but some of them will make the world very interesting one. There is so much to do and so little has been done up to now. The next 100 years will be see lot different science and technology and we all can thank those who have created a solid base for all of us to make meaning of life by mind, thinking and experiments.

Hey thanks for the post. Someone on CR4 has this quote "the more i learn the more i realise how little i know" or somewhere on those lines. The technology for the optical elevator is old, I actually sent a self contained design into NASA when I was 12 (it wasn't practical though, since i didnt know a 100kW laser weighed 1.5T). All the laser does is super heat the bottom of the metallic which causes the air to rapidly expand giving thrust. Also, if im thinking of the same thing, the elevator might use carbon nano tubes (c60)as the guide wire up and that they would be something in space to hold it up by centripital force. I don't think that will happen for a long time though and I would never ride on it. Well im glad I found this site, alot of helpful information.

Thanks again.

Matt

What is impossible today may become Kindergarten school topic tomorrow. You build the shape of tomorrow by thinking about it today. Not to worry about implementation as some one else may also do. I think to let other do things that I may not find time to do. We become many people-one mind in this way and I love that thing which links other minds. When I inspire others, I actually inspire myself in others. I also accept inspiration from others else will be selfish.