25 24 Education Building Careers in Photonics Building Careers in Photonics Education outside academic partners. Importantly, ASP develops a strong, person-oriented global photonics network by sustaining communication with its alumni worldwide. Furthermore, ASP attracts first-class young professional scientists for photonics research work. These gain teaching experience and involve graduate students in their research projects. Other career opportunities available at ASP include the job positions of academic tutors and junior research group leaders. Taken all together, ASP contributes decisively to establish Jena as being one of the world’s leading educational centers for photonics and quantum technologies. HIGH-LEVEL PHOTONICS TRAINING LABORATORY Having extensive hands-on experience is one of the most valuable professional attributes by which a true expert in optics and photonics can be distinguished. To strengthen laboratory experience already at the beginning of a student‘s Master’s degree studies, ASP has set up and continuously develops its photonics training laboratory with currently more than 18 dedicated optical and quantum setups. Students are able to perform high-level experiments using strictly research-grade components and equipment. After 2020, some of these setups have been transformed into remotely controllable experiments, so-called Extended Reality (XR) Twin Labs, whose analogue and digital twins are fully synchronized in time and space. The laboratory‘s equipment covers continuous-wave and pulsed lasers, interferometry, linear and nonlinear spectroscopy, optical time-domain reflectrometry and optical tweezing, to name only a few. The corresponding research techniques were made available with respect to their educational value and designed by ASP’s senior scientists and academic tutors. They are fully operated by students. This strong commitment of allowing a maximum of hands-on experience during beginning-stage studies is clearly a distinguishing feature of ASP teaching, as compared to other educational institutions. Moreover, to support our graduate students in their experimental abilities to independently analyze and solve challenges in optics and photonics, they are granted from the beginning of their training full access to ACP laboratories with their respective research equipment. Our photonics training laboratoy is continuously upgraded to incorporate new trends, such us Artificial Reality (AR) and Virtural Reality (VR) techniques. PURSUING THE PHOTONICS CAREER ASP prepares its graduate students for a successful start in their professional careers. For example, in cooperation with the Faculty of Physics and Astronomy, ASP organizes various career events such as job and talent fairs. Here, graduate students are brought into direct personal contact with our local industry partners, many of them specialized in applicational fields. These job and talent fairs provide a setting for the efficient matching of career opportunities and expectations. Furthermore, by means of career-mentoring workshops with scientists and representatives from various businesses, students receive valuable orientation and advice. They can thus better ready themselves for a global job market full of opportunity. BUILDING CAREERS IN PHOTONICS The Abbe School of Photonics (ASP) is an integral part of the Abbe Center of Photonics. It provides and coordinates the graduate programs in optics and photonics at the University. Thus, ASP serves as a career springboard by promoting academic careers, as well as providing opportunities to gain job experience in the photonics industry. Its interdisciplinary education programs are embedded in ACP’s cross-fertilizing research environment. One of the school‘s core degree programs is the international Master’s degree program in Photonics. In order to open up the program to students worldwide, all ASP lectures are taught completely in English. ASP’s concept and philosophy aim at establishing Jena as one of the world’s leading educational centers in optics and photonics. ASP has been shaped by our University’s traditionally broad spectrum of teaching activities in the light sciences. The School offers outstanding opportunities for high-level qualification at the graduate level in the areas of optics and photonics. Its academic qualification strategy is fully research-oriented and based on the principles of academic freedom, competitive research conditions and internationalization at all levels of education and research. On the one hand, ASP’s training promotes and optimally links career phases of young scientists in academia. On the other hand, the School also recognizes the fact that the large majority of its graduates will continue their careers in companies conducting intensive research. All of our competitive careerdevelopment measures are therefore designed to lay the foundation for successful careers in academia as well as in industry. ASP coordinates and organizes all of ACP’s educational activities. The School was founded in 2008 as an essential part of the ProExcellence Initiative issued by the Free State of Thuringia. Since then, the local state and the federal governments, the Carl-Zeiss-Stiftung, Germany’s optics industry and the European Union together have provided more than € 16 million in basic funding necessary to support this process. A key factor of the program is ASP’s close collaboratory work with its industrial partners. To sustain these business‘ partners’exceptionally high degree of economic development in the future, and with regard to Germany‘s demographic development, the constant availability of a substantial number of highly qualified employees is required. ASP graduates are just such potential candidates, trained and well-prepared to shape the future of Germany‘s next innovations in photonics and hightech industry. CAREER TRACKS IN PHOTONICS AND QUANTUM SCIENCES AND TECHNOLOGY One of the School‘s core programs is its Master’s degree program in Photonics (M.Sc. Photonics). This program‘s lectures and courses are taught completely in English. The recruitment is based on a global strategy - selecting the best students from around the world. On the Master’s degree level, ASP’s teaching staff is also strongly engaged in specializing its photonics courses for students in the Master’s degree program in physics (M.Sc. Physics) and in medical photonics (M.Sc. Medical Photonics). A new, also international Master’s degree (M.Sc. Quantum Science and Technology) is currently in the ramp-up phase. Moreover, our School has established a structured coordinated doctoral program, comparable to a PhD program in the USA, which is directly linked with ACP’s strategic research programs. Further academic courses and career development work are supported by our advanced optics training laboratory and a comprehensive scholarship program for deserving graduate students. In addition to its academic course programs, ASP organizes and carries out joint activities related to business education, run in collaboration with industrial partners and Master’s degree and doctoral students at the Jena hub of the international Photonics Online Meetup 2023. Remotely controllable Michelson interferometer with digital twin (XR TwinLab) for training and education purposes. ASP doctoral researcher adjusting a laser in the photonics training laboratory.
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