According to Pavel Belov, dean of the faculty, it is a project by ITMO’s International Research Center for Nanophotonics and Metamaterials, which has been conducting research and educational activities for the past six years. One day, its stakeholders decided to expand the hub by establishing a new center for training students.
"To work in the field of photonics at a high level students have to be versed in such disciplines as physics and optics. ITMO already has a strong IT school. We’ve decided to create one more faculty to teach the future top-level physicists," says Pavel Belov.
The new faculty is located in ITMO’s building on Lomonosova street, 9. It unites the Department of Nanophotonics and Metamaterials, the Department of Physics and the Department of Dielectric and Semiconductor Photonics. Currently, they offer two Master’s programs in Russian ("Science Communication" and "Photonics of Dielectrics and Semiconductors"), and one program in English ("Metamaterials").
"This year will be devoted to development of programs for Bachelors and organizational work. Next year, we will pay more attention to Master’s programs. Recently, ITMO won two grants — the first one for studying perovskvites (the project is headed by Anvar Zakhidov), and the second one for researching hybrid light-matter states in low-dimensional quantum materials (guided by Morris Skolnick)," said Mr. Belov. "I believe that our projects will be as successful as the metamaterials research developed in collaboration with Yuri Kivshar, which also won a state grant."
According to Mr. Belov, the graduates of the new faculty will be in high demand both in Russian and international research and engineering organizations — Those ITMO’s graduates who have similar technical background work in Finland, France and the UK. The new faculty will provide all necessary facilities for commercializing research projects of its students.
