The Department of Physics at the National Dong Hwa University was initially founded with the undergraduate program in 1997. The Graduate Institute of Applied Physics, which is affiliated with the Department of Physics, was later established in 2001 and started offering the master and doctoral degree programs in 2001 and 2003, respectively.

Undergraduate Education and Graduate Study

One notable feature of the undergraduate course design at National Dong Hwa University is “modularization,” that is, grouping courses together as modules whose scope can be a broad major or a specialized field. The idea is to equip students with a solid background knowledge of a major through required core modules and the disciplines of specialized fields through selective modules. Students, therefore, have the flexibility to customize course combinations to fit their future study or career perspectives. The current curriculum at the Department of Physics contains three core modules: basic sciences, physics core (I), and physics core (II). The department also provides two selective modules: (1) theoretical and computational physics, and (2) nanophysics and optoelectronic physics. All selective modules contain courses from which students should be able to gain hands-on research experiences and enhance their future competitiveness by joining laboratories or engaging in mentored independent studies. The emphasis of graduate study is on training a student to carry out an independent research project under the supervision of a thesis advisor. The basic courses are meant to provide students with a solid foundation and sufficient motivation for their thesis research. Additionally, there are advanced courses on the fields of active research in the department.

Research

The current research areas and active research topics at the Department of Physics include:

• Biophysics: spectroscopy and its bio and medical applications, mechanism of metalloprotein catalysis, free radical biophysics, and biological mass spectrometry.
• Condensed Matter Physics: surface studies using spectroscopic and microscopic techniques, nanostructures, magnetism, superconductivity, low-dimensional materials, thermoelectric materials, thermal and electrical properties of solids, and electronic structure of novel materials.
• Theoretical/ Computational Physics: particle physics, cosmology, nuclear physics, atomic physics, many-body theory, complex networks, and computational material science.

Besides independent research activities, three major interdisciplinary research directives: biophysics, computational physics, and nanophysics, are identified at the departmental level. This is not only to foster collaborative research atmosphere and generate collective research output in the department, but also to integrate laterally with research in other departments (applied mathematics, chemistry, life science, materials science, information science, electrical engineering etc.) and vertically with the development strategy of the university at the cutting-edge new sciences (life science, environmental science, oceanic science etc.).