It achieved a perfect subject score of 100, ranking ahead of China’s Zhejiang University in second place and Stanford University in the U.S. in third.
Mainland China dominated the top 10 with five mainland universities, while the U.S. had two. Singapore, Switzerland and Hong Kong each had one.
U.S. News defines optics as the study of the generation and propagation of light and related phenomena. The field covers areas including lasers, quantum optics, fiber optics, optoelectronics, photonics, infrared technology and luminescence.
U.S. News world top 10 universities for optics
Rank
University
Country/territory
1
National University of Singapore
Singapore
2
Zhejiang University
China
3
Stanford University
U.S.
4
Tsinghua University
China
5
École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
Switzerland
6
Harvard University
U.S.
7
Huazhong University of Science and Technology
China
8
University of Chinese Academy of Sciences
China
9
City University of Hong Kong
Hong Kong
10
University of Science and Technology of China, CAS
China
The optics ranking, released in June, assessed 283 universities that published at least 200 papers in the field between 2020 and 2024, with the top 250 included in the published ranking.
The subject rankings measure academic research performance using 10 indicators covering areas such as research reputation, publications, citations, highly cited papers and international collaboration.
Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University also made the global top 20, ranking 15th.
Singapore was the world’s second-richest country by GDP per capita in 2025, behind Switzerland, according to The Economist.
The National University of Singapore. Photo courtesy of the university
Beyond optics, NUS recorded several other top-10 performances in STEM subjects. It ranked third globally for chemistry, fifth for both artificial intelligence and materials science, sixth for computer science, and eighth for both engineering and electrical and electronic engineering.
It also ranked 10th for physical chemistry, 12th for nanoscience and nanotechnology and pharmacology and toxicology, and 14th for energy and fuels.
Overall, NUS, which has 35,446 students, including 11,589 international students, ranks 16th globally and second in Asia in the 2026-2027 U.S. News Best Global Universities rankings.