光電所所訊

～ The 3^rd Seoul National University-National Taiwan University Student Workshop 2008 on Photonic Materials and Devices ～

Time: December 14^th ~ 19^th, 2008

Location: Seoul National University

Composed by Min-Yung Ke, GIPO Ph.D. candidate (Team Leader, representative student team)

Near the end of October, I received a letter from my professor, asking if I was interested in taking part in the 3^rd National Taiwan University-Seoul National University Student Workshop. I replied “yes”, thinking that this would be an opportunity to do some travelling. However, at the 1^st NTU pre-seminar meeting, I was unexpectedly elected the leader of the NTU team, responsible for planning and managing the event.

My interaction with Seoul began when I sent out an e-mail to the team leader of the Seoul group. After the initial greetings and polite exchanges, I realized that I had already met their leader back when we both took part in the 2^nd Student Workshop. We exchanged MSN accounts immediately and began our intensive discussions and planning, which lasted until our NTU team flew to Korea on December 14^th.

Our team was groggy and tired when we first landed, since we woke early to catch our flight. However, the cold air (0~ -2℃ ) in Korea woke us instantly. After excitedly buying Korea’s famous "banana milk", we waited for the SNU leader to come and pick us up from the airport, admiring the beauty of Korean girls while we waited.

Students and professors waiting at the airport

After our arrival at SNU and a short break, the SNU team leader and several students showed us around the campus. The campus is located in a mountainous area in the suburbs of Seoul, an area often frequented by hikers. Excluding the scattered high-rise buildings, the campus looked more like an ideal place for mountain climbing and hiking to us visitors from Taiwan. While touring and appreciating the campus scenery, we chatted with the Korean students, about student life and the rewards and challenges of our research.

On the SNU campus

After a good night's rest, the 3^rd National Taiwan University-Seoul National University Student Workshop began the next morning. I listened to several reports on differing fields, delivered by both NTU and SNU students. I then noticed that, regardless of the outcomes of research, SNU students were better at expressing and putting forth the strengths of their research. With this ability, they were able to impress their listeners as they introduced their university.

Koreans are known to us, perhaps, as an energetic people. After planning the workshop itinerary with the SNU leader and interacting with SNU students during the workshop, I’ve also come to realize that they are not so different from people around us. They were enthusiastic and hospitable during our visit; during private discussions, they generously shared their research ideas with us. It seems to me that their life plans and goals are much the same as mine.

In the last few days after the seminar, we visited some ancient monuments and scenic areas in the suburbs of Seoul. We came to realize that the old Korea had been heavily influenced by Chinese culture. Nowadays their constant efforts and progress have made them a country to be respected, and SNU has also become one of the top 100 universities in the world. Participants of this year’s workshop were all doctoral students; they demonstrated positivity and self-confidence, fully identifying themselves with their studies and their environment. It seems to me that this positive attitude is less apparent in Taiwanese students. I feel that we can build our strength by learning from their attitude, and increase our ability to compete.

I would like to thank GIPO for providing us with this opportunity to take part in the workshop. Generally, during international conferences, we would merely deliver our reports and listen to others' reports, not interacting much with other participants. However, through this exchange, we interacted with SNU students and gained an understanding of the differences in thinking and in attitudes between students of different countries. Although I am back in Taiwan, I believe I have gained a lot from this workshop.

Composed by Chun-Da Liao, GIPO Ph.D. candidate

The 3^rd National Taiwan University-Seoul National University Student Workshop took place at SNU, Korea, on December 15^th, 2008. The seminar was focused on the application of photonic materials and components. Discussions covered five topics: optical characterization and modeling, wide band-gap semiconductors, OLED, infrared optoelectronics, and photonic devices. The four-day exchange event also included visits to Korea Advanced Nano Fab Center (KANC), Advanced Institute of Convergence Technology (AICT), and Inter-university Semiconductor Research Center (ISRC). In addition, tours exploring Korean culture and cities enhanced the exchange resulting from this event. We were provided with the opportunity to meet graduate students from other countries and to learn from each other, broadening our vision and horizons.

Korean graduate students like to chat about topics such as daily studying hours, interaction between advisors and students, students' salaries, and ways to ease pressure, just as Taiwanese graduate students do. Daily studying hours are about the same between the students of both universities. However, in Korea, a country renowned for its love of video games, students are unable to connect to any gaming website during class hours, which is not the case in Taiwan. Sports and music are common ways of alleviating pressure. Unlike Taiwan, however, Korean graduate students, and even professors, like to gather in small groups to drink a little and relax. In fact, there are bars on campus. As to research facilities, I think there are some things we could learn from SNU. Although NTU has plenty of research facilities and equipment, they are scattered all over campus, making them inconvenient to use. I believe that if we could build a large research center, bringing together all those facilities, and establish a comprehensive system of management, we would be more able to increase NTU's competitiveness in the international engineering field. As we can see from the development of industries of TFT-LCD, LED, OLED, and solar cells, Korea and Taiwan are generally on the same track in the area of photonics.


Participating professors and students at the workshop	Tour of the KANC

In addition to what was mentioned above, city tours allowed me to see more likeness between Korea and Taiwan. Some streets in downtown Seoul look very much like those in Taipei. For example, Seoul's Myeong-dong and Insa-dong look like Taipei's Ximen-ding and East Area (“dong” and “ding” seem close in meaning). Korean students like to visit these places during weekends and holidays as well. Seoul Tower, built on a hill, overlooks Seoul and its beautiful night view, just as Taipei 101 overlooks Taipei. The resemblance between Korean and Taiwanese cultures is even more apparent when visiting the art gallery and Changdeokgung Palace. With regard to writing and language, Chinese characters can be seen in many places in Korea, and some Taiwanese pronunciation is similar to Korean pronunciation. In terms of geography, both Taiwan and Korea are close to China. Therefore, it is easy to see the many resemblances between the two countries.

From this event, we have been inspired and learned a lot in terms of research and in terms of culture. I would like to thank the graduate students of SNU for their generous hospitality; Chairman Huang, Vice Chairman Lin and Professor Su for sharing their experiences during this trip.


Tour of the KANC	At the Seoul Museum of History