The workshop was held as part of the educational activities of the newly established Czech Semiconductor Centre (CSC) and the Czech-Taiwanese ACDRC project, which aims to link academic research with industrial practice and contribute to the technological self-sufficiency of the Czech Republic in the field of semiconductors. FEE CTU is one of the key academic partners of this centre.
"The interest in the workshop exceeded our expectations - 71 students registered, 20 of whom attended in person in the laboratories of the Department of Microelectronics, the rest followed the online teaching. Approximately 27 participants were from CTU, most of them from FEE, others came from TU Wien, VUT Brno, MU Brno, Sapienza University of Rome or SPŠ Ječná. Students from several Taiwanese universities also joined online," said the main organizer of the workshop, Dr. Vladimír Janíček, who together with Prof. Jiří Jakovenko also participated in the workshop as a lecturer.
The format of the morning lectures and the afternoon practical tasks was highly appreciated by the participants - they praised the clear assignments, the division into sub-steps and the active help in their execution. The organizers prepared a software package with an operating system and the necessary tools, which online participants could run as a virtual machine - thanks to this they could work fully outside the faculty network. This approach proved to be very effective and well usable even in distance learning.
The lecturers from Taiwan were pleased with the high level of involvement and interest of Czech students. They appreciated that they actively asked questions, discussed and showed an effort to understand the context. Although the workshop was held over a weekend, the participation was almost 100% and the atmosphere was very open and friendly.
The Silicon Photonics Summer School will take place in June
The workshop was not the last opportunity for students to meet with experts from Taiwan. The next follow-up event to the CSC activities will be the Summer School on Silicon Photonics Design and Analysis, which will take place between 16 and 27 June 2025. The classes, which will include both theoretical lectures and practical exercises, will take place on weekdays in full-time attendance at the CTU FEE.
During the Summer School, students will learn about the design of photonic components and their use in photonic systems. They will try working with tools such as RSoft, OptSim, L-edit Photonics, OptoCompiler, Advanced Design System, Matlab and kLayout. Places are limited and interested parties can apply via the online form - preferably as soon as possible.
