FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. - University of Arkansas research professor Ken Vickers spent years as an engineering manager at Texas Instruments wishing his new college graduate employees had received a broader selection of courses in their graduate degree programs. Now Prof. Vickers heads a university program that offers exactly the type of training he sought in graduate students.

The Arkansas Department of Higher Education recently approved two new master's degrees, one in microelectronics-photonics and the other in applied physics. The microelectronics-photonics degree, in particular, offers a multidisciplinary approach for students that can lead them straight to jobs in high-technology fields.

"We built our program to make sure we use our strengths," Vickers said. "At the University of Arkansas we have strengths in packaging, in photonics, and in the sub-microscopic world."

These strengths have been built largely through the physics department’s leading edge work in laser-photonics and their new semiconductor growth facility, and through the College of Engineering’s High Density Electronics Center (HiDEC), which focuses on technological issues in microprocessing and packaging.

"HiDEC has provided a seed for the growth of interdisciplinary research and the corresponding training of graduate students," said Dr. Greg Salamo, University professor of physics. Salamo also noted that University research facilities in this field have greatly improved after several years of financial support from the NSF EPSCoR program and the Arkansas Science and Technology Authority (ASTA). "For instance, the $1 million Molecular Beam

Epitaxy (MBE) facility gives us capabilities that cannot be duplicated at any other U.S. university," he said.

Instead of isolating the master's degree candidates in one aspect of a field, Vickers designed the microelectronics-photonics program to incorporate technology management, physics, chemistry, and various aspects of career specific engineering into the curriculum. Students are often expected to broaden their skill set on the job, but Vickers and others believe that doing so in school will allow graduates to start with a competitive edge in the workplace.

"In the future, there will be a growing need for interdisciplinary graduates," said Dr. Leon Alkalai, director of the Center for Integrated Space Microsystems (CISM) at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratories (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif. "In particular, at NASA's JPL, we are looking for engineers with a stronger background in physics, computer science, biology and chemistry."

The students also feel they are getting value through their studies. Brian Hart, now in his second year of the program, stated "I hope that at the end of the program, I have learned both the academic knowledge necessary to perform my job, and have some idea as to what working in an industrial setting would be like."

Another second year student in the program, Wee Lee Ng, who has a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering, can already attest to the strengths of the program. "I now can talk to others about chemical engineering, but I can also work efficiently as a well rounded engineer," she said. Ng currently works with Texas Instruments in the type of "real business" internship program that Vickers encourages the students to experience at some point during their academic career.

Faculty from many different departments in both the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences and the College of Engineering participate in the program. They include Simon Ang, electrical engineering; Laurent Bellaiche, Physics; Bill Brown, electrical engineering; Aicha Elshabini, Electrical Engineering; Mark Filipowski, physics; Ingrid Fritsch, chemistry; Matt Gordon, mechanical engineering; Michael Henry, physics; Ajay Malshe, mechanical engineering; Hameed Naseem, electrical engineering; Kraig Olejniczak, electrical engineering; William Oliver III, physics; Greg Salamo, physics; Len Schaper, electrical engineering; Bill Schmidt, mechanical engineering; Paul Thibado, physics; John Todd, management; Rick Ulrich, chemical engineering; Ken Vickers, physics; and Min Xiao, physics;. Faculty from other colleges, including business and education, will also assist with the program, Vickers said.

The microelectronics-photonics program operates in many ways like a business. Students have weekly research operations meetings, give monthly progress reports and learn group management/teamwork skills that will be needed in their professional careers. In addition, the students are required to take an entrepreneurship of technology course, team-taught by Vickers and Dr. John Todd, professor of management, that will debut this spring. Students will learn how to decide if a research effort could possibly lead to a marketable product and will work with the Office of Technology Licensing to potentially commercialize campus research.

"The graduates of and products produced by this program will be of value to industry in Arkansas," Vickers said. Future plans for the microelectronics-photonics program include an expansion of the program into a multidisciplinary Ph.D. degree. Vickers notes that the $2.1 million grant just received by the program through a NSF Integrative Graduate Education and Research Training (IGERT) award gives the University the resources to rapidly move this program forward."

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