The Stanford Photonics Research Center

August 19, 2008

Optical software maker Optical Research Associates (ORA) of Pasadena, Calif., announced it has selected the winners of its annual Student Optical Design Competition. The annual awards, which total $4000, are presented to students in North America working toward undergraduate or graduate degrees and who use the company's Code V or LightTools software to perform research in some area of optical design or engineering. Top awards were presented to Quan Wang and Chia-Yu Chen, PhD candidates at Stanford University, for their research into zoom lenses for cell phone cameras; and Rob Bates, who is pursuing a master's at the University of Arizona, for his project "200 Years in One Design: Landscape Lens to Modern Compact Camera." Also receiving awards were Ramzi Zahreddine, an undergraduate at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, for his design of a laser beam shaping system using spherical GRIN polymer lenses; and Xinye Lou, a PhD candidate at the University of Rochester's Institute of Optics, for his wide field of view head-mounted display for virtual reality.http://www.opticalres.com/student/contest_detail_results_08.html
The lens design project, Zoom Lens for Cell Phone Cameras, has been done as one of the class projects in EE347 Optical Methods in Engineering and Science (Winter 2008) which has been taught by a faculty member of SPRC, Prof. Lambertus Hesselink. In addition to the top award this year, two class projects from EE347 have won top awards also in 2005 and 2004.
 
Student Optical Design Competition Winners from EE347, Optical Methods in Engineering and Science
 
Top Award 2008
Title: Zoom Lens for Cell Phone Cameras
Quan Wang and Chia-Yu Chen
http://www.opticalres.com/student/contest_detail_results_08.html
 
Top Award 2005
Title: Imaging Optics for a Colonoscope
Erik Anderson and Amber Bullington
http://www.opticalres.com/student/2005/contest_detail_results_05.html
 
Top Award 2004
Title: A 100x, 0.85 NA, Diffraction-Limited Objective for Thru-Silicon Microscopy
Jeremy Rowlette and Claude Matalanis
http://www.opticalres.com/student/contest_detail_results_04.html