Springfield Technical Community College

LASER-TEC is the Center for Laser and Fiber Optics Education, founded in 2013 by the National Science Foundation (NSF), and headquartered at Indian River State College in Florida. It was founded to help meet the goals of educating and sourcing domestic talent in the areas of optics and photonics. As a service to students, recent graduates, and prospective employers, Photonics Spectra runs a profile of one of the LASER-TEC colleges each month.

Springfield Technical Community College (STCC) offers a one-year Optics and Photonics Technology certificate and a two-year Optics and Photonics Technology Associate of Science degree. The programs give engineering technicians knowledge of lasers and optics, and provide the electronics skills needed to design, test, and maintain complex optical and photonic systems. Graduates work side by side with engineers and scientists involved with cutting-edge applications in a wide variety of highly technical applications.

Student Shane Richardson measures laser beam characteristics. Courtesy of LASER-TEC.

Applications include laser materials processing, fiber optic communications, precision optical manufacturing and metrology, aerospace and defense, homeland security, medical device fabrication, nanotechnology, and integrated photonic devices.

As the only program of its kind in New England, STCC’s Optics and Photonics Technology graduates are highly sought by industry and have enjoyed excellent job placement and salaries since 1976. Companies that hire STCC graduates include MIT Lincoln Lab, Northrop Grumman, Coherent, Lumentum, TRUMPF, OFS, IPG Photonics, Convergent Photonics, Viavi Solutions, II-VI Inc., L3 Technologies, and Zygo.

Programs

One-year Optics and Photonics Technology certificate

Two-year Optics and Photonics Associate of Science degree

These one- and two-year programs with a strong interdisciplinary core curriculum provide extensive hands-on training in state-of-the-art optics and photonics labs. The one-year certificate program, which serves as the first year of the associate degree, provides students with extensive theoretical and hands-on training in lasers and laser systems, fiber optics, geometric optics, electronics, SolidWorks, and other manufacturing essentials. The associate degree program builds on the certificate by providing additional advanced coursework in industrial laser applications, wave optics, advanced topics, and a yearlong senior capstone project. The curriculum is heavily project- and problem-based, and the majority of students have paid internship opportunities with local laser and optics companies.

Graduates of the associate degree program will have the skills to:

Align, clean, build, and test complex optical systems.
Strip, cleave, clean, and align multimode, single-mode, and dual-clad fiber.
Calculate and measure fiber optic power loss in decibels, and power in dBm.
Determine modal dispersion, chromatic dispersion, and system bandwidth.
Terminate and test fiber optic cables for connector and insertion loss.
Operate optical time-domain reflectometers (OTDRs), fusion splicers, optical spectrum analyzers, fiber inspection microscopes, and fiber optic loss test sets.
Identify fiber loss mechanisms and create fiber optic power budgets.
Align, operate, and characterize LEDs, laser diodes, and photodetectors.
Operate, test, and troubleshoot erbium-doped fiber amplifiers (EDFAs), wavelength-division multiplexers, add/drop multiplexers, circulators, thin-film filters, and fiber Bragg gratings.
Design, build, and test electronic circuits and devices.
Use oscilloscopes, multimeters, signal generators, spectrum analyzers, and laboratory power supplies.
Apply electrical and laser safety standards and practices.
Operate, test, and maintain ytterbium-doped and erbium-doped fiber lasers.
Operate, test, and maintain CO2, argon-krypton, and HeNe gas lasers.
Use a laser power and energy meter to measure the output power and energy of a laser.
Use an optical spectrum analyzer to measure the temporal output characteristics of a laser.
Test, maintain, and troubleshoot basic laser components.

How to recruit from this college

Come to our college to present your company and employment opportunities. We will make available, free of charge, a private room to interview interested students. Please contact the person below to make arrangements. Interns and graduates are available every summer.

Contact information

Nicholas Massa
+1 413-755-4579
massa@stcc.edu

1 Armory Square
Springfield, MA 01102

Program website

www.stcc.edu/laser