The Department of optics and spectroscopy was established in 1961 by its first head associate Professor Elizaveta Nikolaevna Ivanova and a small group of teachers: S. M. Yazykova, N. N. Kirsanova, T. A. Oleynikova, R. P. Vorobieva, A. N. Latvian. Up to this point, they all worked at the Department of electromagnetic oscillations under the guidance of the world-famous prof.M. Levitskaya, where scientific research and specialists in optical spectroscopy of atoms, molecules and solids were produced.