DTU Fotonik, Department of Photonics Engineering is a department at the Technical University of Denmark. In 2010, about 190 researchers are employed at DTU Fotonik, including about 55 PhD Students. In a typical year, the department educates more than 40 MSc students and 20 PhD students. The department is currently headed by Lars-Ulrik Aaen Andersen after the former director Anders Bjarklev became provost of the university.
The previously named Research Center COM was formed in 1998 by a merging of the Photonics Group at the Microelectronics Center (MIC) and the Centre for Broadband Telecommunication at the Department of Electromagnetic Systems. To gather all the activities at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) within optical communications and telecommunications, Research Center COM was merged with the Center for Tele-Information and the Department of Telecommunication in 2001. A change in September 2005 of status from a DTU-center to a DTU-Department led to the name: COM•DTU - Department of Communications, Optics & Materials. As an outcome of the initial merge between DTU and Risø National Laboratory on January 1 2007, COM•DTU was merged on January 1 2008 with the Department of Optics and Plasma Research at Risø to form a new department named DTU Fotonik, Department of Photonics Engineering.