Photonics, with an emphasis on imaging: optical design (Zemax), ray transfer matrices, aberrations, scattering, resolution and optical transfer functions, adaptive optics, polarization, laser scanning, ultrafast pulses, detectors, superresolution, and VR/AR.

Prerequisites: PHYS 5/PHYS 5L or PHYS 7D/PHYS 7L or PHYS 25 or equivalent.

4

Units

Letter

Grading

1, 2, 3

Passtime

Undergraduate students only

Level Limit

Engineering

College
These majors only ee cmpen
SMITH S R
Roy Smith
3.6
7 reviews
SMITH S L
Spencer Smith
2.9
12 reviews
AI predicted, based on past grading trends of the course and instructor, class info, and 127 other factors
ILP 3312
F
10:00 AM - 10:50 AM
13 / 30

Winter 2024 . Smith S L
GIRV 2123
T R
12:30 PM - 13:45 PM
Winter 2026 . Smith S L
ILP 3107
T R
12:30 PM - 13:45 PM
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ECE 136B Smith S L Winter 2026 Total: 26
ECE 136B Smith S L Winter 2025 Total: 12
See All
20
3.25
ECE136B . Smith S L 2 Years Ago

Cared heavily on students learning rather than exams. Little homework, but i see it as a downside because it was hard to retain a lot of what he is saying. There is no textbook, everything is based off lectures he gives so its important to attend almost all of them. Lots of topics to cover in 10 weeks but was manageable. very different from ece134.

0 helpful 0 unhelpful
ece134 . Smith S L 4 Months Ago

(looks like roark got my prev review removed.) bad teacher, just reads off slides which are screenshots of the textbook. roark (TA) took prof York's hw problems and added random info/connections to his research, making the problems very confusing. learned nothing, then took 144 with York and that cleared everything up.

0 helpful 0 unhelpful
ece134 . Smith S L 4 Months Ago

Smith is a good professor and passionate about the course content. The problem is the structure of the class sucks. He went over 150+ slides per week, as there is way too much content to go over in a 10 week period. Super hard to absorb anything in this class, but grading is lenient and you'll prob get a high grade even if you don't learn anything

0 helpful 0 unhelpful
ece134 . Smith S L 4 Months Ago

I love the quiz only format. We're only graded on our quizzes and thats it. The issue is that we don't learn the material very well. If you want to do well and have an easy time in this class, read griffiths before hand and you'll be fine. I took ECE 6 and 136B with Spencer and he's an amazing prof. but the class needs some work.

0 helpful 0 unhelpful
ece134 . Smith S L 4 Months Ago

Not structured great, covered too many topics, quizzes were super surface level, and as a result I learned very little. Generous grader and most will end with a high grade even if you performed poorly on many quizzes. Not a fan of the class structure.

0 helpful 0 unhelpful
ece134 . Smith S L 5 Months Ago

Lectures were vague, and he read off of his slides the whole time. The entire class was based off of weekly quizzes, which are hard to prepare for given that his lecture content is all over the place. He will go over the answers to the quizzes, however he won't post them on Canvas for review (despite them being the most useful thing in the class).

0 helpful 1 unhelpful
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