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A little over ten years ago, the physics department at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology introduced an applied optics program at the graduate level. Included among the five core courses required for the Master's degree, was a four credit hour course in integrated optics which consisted of both lecture and laboratory. Such a course offering required not only a working knowledge of the lecture material but also the acquisition of appropriate equipment and material to develop a laboratory for demonstrating principles presented in class. Suitable experiments would consist of the fabrication of and the coupling into such elements as planar and channel waveguides. Other experiments would involve the study of phase modulation and amplitude modulation in integrated optical devices. Expertise for offering the course was obtained through a sabbatical taken in the electrical engineering department at the University of Cincinnati in 1983. An important feature available at the university was its microelectronics fabrication laboratory. This experience provided the necessary practical knowledge required to develop an integrated optics course with a laboratory component. Because of the expense of much of the equipment required to fabricate the devices, alternative approaches had to be taken. Some of these approaches included in-house fabrication of large scale equipment, donations of older equipment and integrated optical devices from sister institutions, government educational programs, and corporate funding programs. Although, a laboratory, as originally envisioned, has not yet been fully completed, what is available at present fulfills some of the intended goals.
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