| Research Areas | Key Areas | Faculty Members |
| Biomedical Optics | Raman spectroscopy, cerebral hemodynamics, biosensors, nonlinear optical microscopes, detection and characterization of single viruses, study of transmembrane proteins using single molecule spectroscopy, photodynamic therapy, light scattering spectroscopy, confocal microscopy, fluorescence imaging of gene expression, in-vivo imaging, real-time pathology, image restoration, super-resolution of retinal images | Prof. Andrew Berger Prof. Robert Boyd Prof. Philippe Fauchet Prof. Jim Fienup Prof. Tom Foster Prof. Nicholas George Prof. Wayne Knox Prof. Duncan Moore Prof. Lukas Novotny Prof. Jannick Rolland Prof. David Williams Prof. Jim Zavislan |
| Fibers & Optical Communication |
Fibers, lasers, fiber-optic amplifiers, silicon photonics, lightwave system design, photonic crystal fibers, slow-light techniques, simulated light scattering, soliton propagation | Prof. Govind Agrawal Prof. Robert Boyd Prof. Tom Brown Prof. Nicholas George Prof. Wayne Knox Prof. John Marciante |
| Image Science & Systems |
Quantum imaging, image reconstruction and restoration, wavefront sensing, lensless coherent imaging, phase retrieval, phase-error correction, sparse-aperture and segmented-aperture optical systems, Fourier transform spectroscopy | Prof. Miguel Alonso Prof. Robert Boyd Prof. Tom Brown Prof. Jim Fienup Prof. Nicholas George Prof. Lukas Novotny Prof. Jannick Rolland |
| Nanooptics & Nanophotonics | Light-matter interactions on the subwavelength scale, near-field optical spectroscopy, single molecule studies, nanostructured materials for sensing applications | Prof. Todd Krauss Prof. Qiang Lin Prof. Lukas Novotny |
| Nonlinear Optics and Nonlinear Photonics | Nonlinear optics of metals, extreme nonlinear optics in intense fields, ultrafast material processing, BEC, single photon detection, entanglement, slow light and fast-light, quantum imaging, composite photonic materials | Prof. Govind Agrawal Prof. Nick Bigelow Prof. Robert Boyd Prof. Chunlei Guo Prof. Wayne Knox Prof. Qiang Lin |
| Optical Fabrication & Testing |
Mechanics and chemistry of polishing, magnetorheological finishing, interferometry |
Prof. Jonathan Ellis Prof. Stephen Jacobs Prof. Duncan Moore Prof. Jannick Rolland Prof. Jim Zavislan |
| Optical Engineering & Design |
Liquid crystal optics, opto-mechanics, tolerancing, optical system analysis, optical metrology and system alignment by phase retrieval | Prof. Tom Brown Prof. Jonathan Ellis Prof. Jim Fienup Prof. Stephen Jacobs Prof. Duncan Moore Prof. Jannick Rolland Prof. Jim Zavislan |
| Optical Materials | Plasmonic materials for light localization and guiding, carbon nanotubes, semiconductors, quantum wells and quantum dots, nanocomposite materials | Prof. Robert Boyd Prof. Tom Brown Prof. Todd Krauss Prof. Lukas Novotny Prof. Gary Wicks |
| Optoelectronics & Lasers |
Semiconductor epitaxial structures for lasers, optical detectors, and high-power semiconductor lasers | Prof. Tom Brown Prof. John Marciante Prof. Gary Wicks |
| Physical Optics | Optical system diffractive modelling, phase retrieval, wavefront measurement | Prof. Miguel Alonso Prof. Tom Brown Prof. Jim Fienup Prof. Nicholas George |
| Quantum Optics & Quantum Photonics | Quantum coherence, quantum noise, dark states, entanglement, quantum control, wave packets, multiphoton processes, cavity QED, nonlinear pulse propagation, quantum information, BEC, laser cooling and trapping, photon detection, quantum imaging |
Prof. Govind Agrawal Prof. Nick Bigelow Prof. Robert Boyd Prof. Joseph Eberly Prof. Qiang Lin Prof. Carlos Stroud |
| Ultrafast Optics & High-Field Sciences |
Supercontinuum generation, mode-locked lasers, solitons, ultrafast dynamics in solids, atoms and molecules in strong fields, high-energy-density matter, laser plasmas, femtosecond laser abiation, ultrafast lasers, terahertz technology | Prof. Govind Agrawal Prof. Jianming Dai Prof. Joseph Eberly Prof. Chunlei Guo Prof. Wayne Knox Prof. Xi-Cheng Zhang |