The Fitzpatrick Institute for Photonics is an extensively interdisciplinary Duke effort to advance photonics and optical sciences. The institute leverages Duke's faculty from the Pratt School of Engineering, Trinity Arts and Sciences, and the Duke Medical School to explore problems at the boundary nexus of nano-bio-info-opto convergence.
The mission of the Fitzpatrick Institute is profoundly educational. The institute was founded in 2000 in part to meet an unmet industry need for graduates with the knowledge and skills to transform industrial R&D in photonics and optical science. Our faculty teach undergraduates, master's and doctoral students and foster the technical, collaboration, interdisciplinary exploration, and team-orientation skills set that enables our proteges to thrive in their chosen professions.
As an extension of our education focus, we are highly tuned to the needs of the applied optics industry. We welcome opportunities to place students for internships, to conduct sponsored research, and to broadly collaborate. We invite interested companies to explore our industry partners program.
Our research encompasses eight broad initiative areas: biophotonics, nano/micro systems, quantum optics and information photonics, advanced photonics systems, nanophotonics, metamaterials and plasmonics, systems modeling and novel spectroscopies.