Summary

Personal Brief – Dr. Ghazanfar Hussain Dr. Ghazanfar Hussain is currently serving as an Associate Professor in the Department of H&BS, NUST, MCS Campus, Rawalpindi, where he teaches Applied Physics and Engineering Mechanics to undergraduate courses. He is deeply passionate about teaching, linking theoretical concepts with real-life phenomena and engineering systems to enhance student learning. He previously served in the National Institute of Lasers and Optronics (NILOP), Islamabad, where he established research laboratories, including the Optical Sensors, Metrology and Optical System Designing Group. His research spans optical and optical fiber sensors, fiber Bragg grating fabrication and applications, distributed sensing of temperature, pressure, stress and strain, remote vibration and sound detection, high-current pulse measurements, interferometry for precision metrology, and optical coherence tomography for medical applications. Dr. Hussain has conducted advanced modeling, simulation, and experimental work, including: Fiber Bragg grating recording using excimer-laser-based interferometric schemes, Carousal interferometric sensors for precision rotational metrology, enabling simultaneous measurement of rotation angle, axis, and displacement, independent of medium refractive index, Self-calibrated optical systems for alignment and displacement metrology. Techniques for measuring thickness and refractive index of transparent solids, liquids, and gases, with applications in material purity analysis and optical engineering. He has supervised BS, MSc, MS, and PhD projects in the areas of optical fiber telecommunication networks, optical sensors, and optical metrology. Internationally, he worked as a visiting researcher at the Center for Precision Metrology (CPM), University of North Carolina, Charlotte (2009) under the late Prof. Bob Hocken, where he developed interferometric and non-interferometric setups for nanolithographic system development, including a feedback technique for positional accuracy at one nm scale. He also co-supervised a PhD project on low-cost, high-speed optical scanners for applications in atomic force microscopy and confocal microscopy, resulting in a publication in Precision Engineering (Elsevier, 2012). During his post-PhD attachment at the National Physical Laboratory (NPL), UK, he worked on Optical Phase Conjugate Michelson Interferometers (PCMI) for gauge block metrology and laser aberration correction due to glass cover of laser diode. His MSc from University of Essex, UK and PhD from University of Southampton, UK focused on optical image and signal processing, where he developed pioneering real-time optical techniques using Fourier transforms, volume Bragg gratings, and PCMIs. These systems achieved optical-domain operations such as contrast and edge enhancement, motion detection, velocity filtering, binary logic operations on purely optical images and phase contrast imaging at the speed of light. His optical image processing work extended to supersonic and possibly to hypersonic wind tunnels testing for aerospace design, and resulted in a patent filed by the University of Southampton.

Academic Background

Honours and Awards