Introduction to SPST

School of Physical Science and Technology (SPST) at Southwest Jiaotong University (SWJTU) is originated from the general physics teaching and research section in 1948. After the developing process of the department of applied physics, school of science, SPST has become a harmonious developed teaching and research school with the combination of basic teaching and professional talent training, the combination of the basic research and applied research, and the combination of science and technology.

Currently, SPST consists of three departments, including Applied Physics, Electronic Information Science and Technology, as well as Physics. In SPST, the academic education system covers three levels, including doctor degree, master degree and undergraduate degree, where two undergraduate majors and directions are applied physics and electronic information science and technology. Besides, SPST has one first-level doctoral and master discipline of Physics and one first-level master discipline of Electronics Science and Technology. In addition, there are many research groups consisted of high pressure science and technology, electromagnetic field and microwave technology, high power microwave technology, fusion science, photoelectric engineering and nondestructive testing, theoretical physics and quantum optoelectronics.

There are 112 faculties and 24 staffs in SPST, including 20 professors and 47 associate professors. In SPST, there are one expert recruited in the 1000-talents Plan by the Department of Organization of the Communist Party of China, one Outstanding Contribution Expert and Academic and Technical Leader in Sichuan province, one Specially-invited Expert by SWJTU, two Winners of Education Ministry's New Century Excellent Talents Supporting Plan. Currently, there are 1154 students, including 937 undergraduates, 212 postgraduates and 7 international students.

SPST is responsible for the public basic theory and experiment courses of college physics, which is also the construction base of the National Physics Experimental Teaching Demonstration Center. Besides, the “college physics” is the provincial excellent course and the “Electromagnetic field and electromagnetic wave” is the national excellent course. The textbook of “electromagnetic field and electromagnetic wave” is granted as national high-quality and “The Twelfth Five-Year Plan” teaching materials. The major of Electronic Information Science and Technology is constructed the characteristic specialty and cultivates excellent engineers of Sichuan Province.

In the past five years, SPST has undertaken 77 national projects, more than 90 provincial and horizontal projects, two excellent talent support programs of Education Ministry in the new century, with total funding of more than 94 million RMB. Over 200 academic papers indexed by SCI were published. SPST also won three Provincial and Ministerial Awards for Science and Technology Progress, six Provincial and Ministerial Identification of Technical Achievements and 33 authorized patents for inventions. Until now SPST has fruitful research achievements in the field of the railway safety detection, strong radiation source and microwave system, computational electromagnetics, high temperature and high pressure condensed matter physics, quantum optics, cosmic ray astrophysics, etc.

SPST, which adheres to the internationalization of education philosophy and constantly strengthens international communication, actively hosts the influential international academic conference and signs the cooperation agreements with the domestic and foreign universities and institution, meanwhile, the teachers and students are actively supported to participate in the domestic and international academic conferences, and the domestic and foreign scholars are invited to visit and communicate frequently.

SPST stick to the physical spirit of “Explore the nature to acquire the truth, unify the knowledge and action”, and will make more efforts to realize the construction of SWJTU to be the top-1 university in the field of rail transportation worldwide.

(Department of Physics)

The Department of Physics is a teaching and scientific research unit that undertakes the teaching tasks of the public basic courses of physics for the majors of science and Engineering in our university. In recent years, according to our school's orientation and training objectives, the Department of Physics takes "cultivating people by virtue" as its fundamental task, and with the sustained and vigorous support of schools and colleges, the Department of Physics has formed a good development trend in teaching, scientific research and other aspects, which is characterized by reasonable structure of teachers, complete teaching quality system and open innovation.

 The Department of Physics has a high-quality team of teachers with reasonable title, age and educational background, stable unity and enterprising spirit. There are 42 faculty members, accounting for 40% of the total number of teaching and scientific research, including 6 professors, 20 associate professors, 12 lecturers and 4 laboratory engineering staff.

As the teaching unit of the public basic course of physics, the Department of Physics undertakes about 5,000 people/year teaching of the basic courses of "University Physics" and "University Physics Experiments" in Golden University every year, including general physics courses, all English courses and bilingual courses for all students. Now we have provincial physics teaching team and national physics experimental teaching demonstration center. And it has set up one provincial and ministerial top-quality course (university physics) and one university-level top-quality course (university physics experiment).

On the basis of teaching work, the Department of Physics is based on teaching reform and innovation, and is committed to training innovative talents. In the past five years, great achievements have been made in the construction of textbooks, teaching reform projects and teaching reform papers. In 2016 and 2017, two students won the first prize in the finals of the National Young Teachers'Teaching Competition for Basic Physics Courses in Colleges and Universities. At the same time, the Department of Physics, as the guiding unit of the College Students'Physics Association and the College Students' Electronic Association, has won many awards in various competitions, such as the National College Students'Physics Experiment Competition, the Chinese College Students' Physics Academic Competition and the National College Students'Electronic Design Competition.

The Faculty of Physics Department is strong in years, reasonable in structure and strong in scientific research and innovation. They are engaged in scientific research in condensed matter physics, atomic and molecular physics, theoretical physics, high-pressure physics, astrophysics, material physics, quantum optics and other disciplines. In the past five years, it has undertaken 8 projects of the National Natural Science Foundation, 2 National Defense Science and technology innovation projects, 3 provincial and ministerial projects, 11 patents and more than 100 scientific research papers.

 (Department of Applied Physics)

The Department of Applied Physics has always regarded human resources as the most important strategic resources for the development of disciplines and specialties, paying equal attention to training and introduction, and further optimizing the structure of teachers. There are 25 faculty members in the Department of Applied Physics, including 5 professors (researchers)/tutors, 10 associate professors, 10 lecturers and 20 teachers under 40 years of age. All teachers have doctoral degrees: 1 expert in the 1000-person Program of the Central Group Department, 2 outstanding talents in the new century of the Ministry of Education, 1 academic and technological leader in Sichuan Province and 1 outstanding expert in Sichuan Province with outstanding contributions, and 3 scholar in the School's "Eagle Program". The structure of the teaching staff has formed a team with young and middle-aged teachers as the backbone, high academic level and innovative spirit. As one of the main builders of the first-level subject of physics, the Department of Applied Physics covers the second-level subjects of plasma physics, theoretical physics, condensed matter physics, atomic and molecular physics, optics and so on. Further optimization of discipline structure has initially formed a cross-disciplinary, comprehensive development and solid foundation of discipline support system, and formed a cooperative development mechanism with good penetration and interaction in teaching, scientific research and discipline construction.

The Department of Applied Physics has closely surrounded the needs of national and local economic construction and actively carried out scientific research. Five scientific research teams with distinctive characteristics, stable research directions and reasonable academic echelons have been formed, including the Fusion Research Institute, the Key Laboratory of High Pressure Science and Technology of Sichuan Universities, the Center of Theoretical Physics, the Center of Nanomaterials and Computational Physics, and the Quantum Photoelectric Laboratory. 

The Department of Applied Physics has taken effective measures to deepen the teaching reform, improve the ability and level of personnel training, attach importance to the teaching of Applied Physics courses, and better meet the needs of economic and social development for high-quality innovative talents. In the teaching work, we should actively guide undergraduates to carry out research-based learning, pay attention to cultivating students'innovative consciousness and practical ability, and undergraduates have won many awards in various competitions above the provincial level. At present, there are more than 230 undergraduates in the school.

(Department of Electronic Information Science and Technology)

The Department of Electronic Information Science and Technology of the College of Physical Science and Technology was established by the former Department of Electronic Engineering and the Department of Photoelectric Engineering. The current undergraduate specialty "Electronic Information Science and Technology" relies on the First-Level Discipline doctoral program "Physics", the First-Level Discipline master program "Physics", the second-level discipline "Electromagnetic Field and Microwave Technology" and "Physical Electronics". The undergraduate majors of electronic information science and technology are Sichuan characteristic specialty and excellent engineer construction specialty. There are two research directions of photoelectric technology, electromagnetic field and microwave technology.

At present, there are 34 faculty members in electronic information science and technology, including 28 teachers and 6 other professionals and technicians. Professor 7, Doctor 4, Associate Professor 13, Lecturer 8, Engineer 4, Assistant Engineer 1, Worker 1, Doctor and above education 24, Special Professor 1, Sichuan outstanding contribution expert, Sichuan academic and technological leader 1.

In the fields of photoelectric detection, antenna technology, microwave and radio frequency circuit, computational electromagnetics, radio wave propagation, electromagnetic compatibility and electromagnetic scattering, a number of scientific research achievements have been made and their school-running characteristics have been formed. Teachers with reasonable age structure, higher educational level and clear professional orientation have been established, and specialties with technological innovation and engineering innovation as the main research and innovation system have been specially created， a number of professional teams in the relevant fields to achieve the leading edge of technology.

The Department of Electronic Information Engineering is mainly responsible for the teaching and experimental work of the undergraduate majors of Electronic Information Science and Technology, the graduate majors of Electromagnetic Field and Microwave Technology, Physical Electronics, Physics, etc. The main courses offered are signal and system, electromagnetic field and electromagnetic wave, digital signal processing, digital communication principle, applied optics, physical optics, optoelectronics, sensor technology, photoelectric detection technology, non-destructive testing technology, photoelectric image processing, antenna principle and design, microwave theory and technology, digital communication principle, microwave circuit and experiment, electromagnetic compatibility theory and technology, radio propagation, etc.

The electronic information system has formed distinct characteristics in the research fields of photoelectric detection, high power microwave, antenna and propagation. In recent years, it has undertaken more than 20 national projects, more than 30 vertical and horizontal projects, published more than 100 papers, authorized more than 20 invention patents, published 4 works, won three provincial and ministerial awards, and spent more than 6 million yuan on scientific research.