Professor Chiou doesn't teach you much about Optics. At times it's not even enough to do the homework or exams, and the information you need isn't included in the slides, lectures, or even textbook. You have to piece everything together from past homework solutions, past exam solutions (which have little or no information), or random physics forums, while the professor claims everything is in the slides. At least the grading curve is good (undergrads & grads are curved separately, average for both is an A-).

Unlike what others said, I didn't find this class to be super easy but I did find it to be okay, just your typical upper div. It was composed of 3 quizzes (36%) with the lowest being dropped, a lab report(4%), lab attendance (10%), and a final (50%). The quizzes were almost identical to the sample problems he posted, with one or two questions being different. They were for the most part pretty straightforward and fair. Lab was also straightforward and fun; there were only 6 labs so you finish by week 6 and only the last two labs took up the full 4 hours, as well as the lab report. It was around 8-10 pages max and really easy since you had 3 other people work on it. As for the final, pay attention to what the professor says will be on it, for us, he said it would be composed of Quizzes 1-3 and questions from the last couple of lectures and thats exactly what it was on. I ended up doing pretty good on it. Now, to save you some time and to save others some time, I made this list of what you should focus on studying:
1. Focus on the practice problems first and foremost. If you understand all of these then you'll get at least a B on the quizzes / final
2. Understand the concepts on the lecture notes, there is NO NEED to memorize EVERYTHING. I spent the whole quarter memorizing most of the lectures and tbh it never really paid off. But DO memorize important things from the lectures. For example, in the wet etching lecture memorize what chemical etches what (Ex: HF Acid etches SiO2 and glass and is isotropic, KOH etches Single Crystal Silicon and is Anisotropic).
3. Completely okay to miss some lectures, he posts recordings. But if you can try not to miss them, he sometimes does work on the whiteboard that is not showcased on the recording and saves a lot of time when going through problems. And lectures are only roughly 1 hour and 20 minutes anyway

I would recommend taking this class as an elective or a class instead of 183A ! Good luck :)

This class certainly was not as easy as the other reviews made it seem to be, but it was more than manageable. The structure and exam question style closely resembled MSE 104, where the emphasis was on breadth and not depth but the sheer quantity of information covered during the quarter may be overwhelming. Chiou restructured the course this time around to be 36% quizzes (three total with the lowest one dropped), 10% lab performance and attendance, 4% lab report, and 50% final. About half of the final was questions cut and pasted from the antecedent three quizzes, while the other half covered new material following Quiz 3. While there were no homework assignments, he provided all of the previous homework and exam questions with solutions. Some of those problems (or some variation thereof) end up on the tests, so definitely study them. In the first half of the quarter, Chiou used lecture slides, but he subsequently switched over to typing his notes out in Notion, reading through them during class and adding his own verbal annotations here and there. While the lectures themselves were not particularly engaging, the notes were very comprehensive, and the material is definitely interesting. By memorising all of the lecture notes and practice problem solutions, you could score at least 90% on the quizzes and final - however this was easier said than done. The lab portion of the class was definitely the highlight, as you would be given the opportunity to work in the cleanroom and see for yourself the processes covered during the lectures. For the most part, they ended way before the four hour mark, and the lab portion of the class completed entirely by Week 7. The lab report was pretty straightforward, but I guess grading depends on the TAs. At the end, Chiou curved slightly; with all the dust settled I had a 91.98%, but I ended up getting an A in the class. Overall, I would definitely recommend taking this class, but don't go into it thinking it'll be a cakewalk.

Pretty cool class. There are 7 weeks of lab which involves lithography processes for wafers and playing around with the nanostructures you make on these wafers. That was probably the best part of the class. The lectures were a little dry but the topic itself is quite interesting.
We were given 5-6 homeworks in total which did not take long to do. Many of the homework problems end up on the midterm, so really study it. The exams were questions based off the homework and slides, often a sort of trivia. So um, good luck with memorizing all the lecture slides. Nice thing though is that the final isn't cumulative, so you can just study the stuff after the midterm.
Overall, I give the class a 7.5/10. My only wish is that the lectures were much more engaging.

Feel bad for his exam. Lacking of enough HW to exercise. And unfriendly grading. Never take this class again.

Overall solid class. Lectures can be a little dry but the slides and recordings are posted which was nice. The lab portion of the class finished by week 6 or 7 and was usually 2-3 hours rather than the 4 hrs on the schedule. Only 4 short homeworks too.

Exams were straightforward, everything is either directly from the slides or homework--no surprises. A little bit of trivia you have to memorize but nothing unfair. Not an easy A necessarily but probably as close as you'll get as far as MAE upper divs.