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Physics and Astronomy 343
Format: 1 hr Lecture and 3 hr laboratory
Credit: 3 hr
Prerequisite: One year of quantitative physics and a laboratory course in Science or Engineering, or permission.
Description: A Laboratory course for students in engineering or science (biology, chemistry, physics, etc.). The physical principles and techniques of lasers and modern optics are introduced. Emphasis is placed on hands-on experience with state-of-the-art techniques and applications.
Enrollment: Students of physics, astronomy, chemistry, biology, other sciences, and most engineering disciplines, will find this laboratory course a valuable introduction to techniques and phenomena which pervade modern research and technology. Physics ma-jors/graduate students may wish to enroll in Physics 443/843, but may choose some or all of their ex-perimental projects from this new course.
Experiments: Three experiments will be required of all students (laser safety, and fundamentals of laser operation) and four more are chosen from a list. Further details are available from Prof. S. Ducharme. Two formal written laboratory reports and one oral presentation are re-quired.
Implementation: Offer each spring beginning Spring 1994. Equipment purchased with funds from the NSF ILI program and the Physics and Astronomy Kositzky fund.
Laser and modern optical technologies are perhaps the fastest growing technologies employed in the commercial sector, in research and development, and also in science. Most graduates of physics, astronomy, other sciences, and many engineering disciplines will employ laser and modern optical technology at some point in their careers, whether in graduate school or in immediate employment. UNL must prepare its students for their future using lasers and optics.
Our premise is aptly summarized by Professor John R. Brandenberger of Lawrence University in his 1989 report Lasers and Modern Optics in Undergraduate Physics, "Nearly one-third of today's experimental papers in physics and chemistry report upon the use of lasers. Laser applications outside of the sciences are equally diverse" The Optical Society of America has recognized these principles and has prepared comprehensive guides to courses and degrees offered in optical and laser physics throughout the world. Perhaps the most telling statistics obtained form these guides are that, among Universities and Colleges offering Baccalaureate degrees in optics in the United States, 15 institutions (including 1 physics department) offer formal degrees, 42 more institutions (including 28 physics departments) offer concentrations, and yet another 105 institutions (including 83 physics departments) offer two or more courses, all at the undergraduate level.
Electromagnetic Theory (Physics and Astronomy 451/851)
Electromagnetic Theory (Electrical Engineering 467/867)
Optics and Electromagnetic Waves (Physics and Astronomy 452/852)
Introduction to Lasers and Applications (Electrical Engineering 480/880)
Fourier Optics, Image Analysis, and Holography (Electrical Engineering 481/881)
Optical Properties of Materials (Electrical Engineering 975)
Nonlinear Optics (Electrical Engineering 976)
Current Literature in Electro-Optics (Electrical Engineering 981)
Optical Methods of Analysis (Chemistry 825j)
Photobiology (Biochemistry 939)
Ducharme (laser, optical and condensed matter physics, nonlinear optics) and Burrow (atomic physics), of the Department of Physics and Astronomy; Woollam (optical and condensed matter physics) and Snyder (laser and condensed matter physics). These researchers rely heavily on optical techniques in their research and will lend expertise, and occasionally some laboratory equipment and space.
a. Critical thinking. The students are given equipment and an outline of the procedure necessary to carry out seven experiments. They explore alternate methods of carrying out each experiment, evaluate the outcome, and consider how the experiment should be improved or altered to obtain additional information. Each laboratory session includes the collection and analysis of quantitative data and qualitative observations. Data are summarized in tables and graphs and compared with mathematical models.
b. Writing on which the instructor comments. Emphasis is placed on the use of clear written expression in students' weekly notebook entries and in two formal reports. The instructor comments on the writing in the notebooks and formal reports to help the students improve their technical writing skills. The work in the notebooks and formal reports accounts for 85 % of the total grade.
c. Oral expression. The students work in groups of two or three on the experiments, discussing the conduct and results of the experiments with each other and with the instructor. Each student makes a 10-minute oral presentation to the entire class based on one of the formal reports. All members of the class then discuss the oral presentation with the speaker and the instructor.
d. Analysis of controversies concerning subject matter of the course. Controversies in physics focus on the predictions of competing theoretical models. The students conduct experimental investigations designed to illustrate and test these models. This process is particularly important when there are two or more competing models that provide different predictions for a specific experiment. The students must consider which, if any, of the models developed by others adequately describes the results. When the models do adequately describe the results, the students consider what new experiments could further test the models.
e. Exploration of assumptions underlying beliefs and concepts relevant to the course content and of processes for examining these assumptions. When (as is often the case) the models do not adequately describe the experiments, the students consider what modifications of the models may be necessary, what assumptions must be reconsidered. The general process of scientific thinking is exercised as the students study each experiment in detail: Experiment (observe phenomena), Hypothesize (build a logical model describing the observations, Test (make observations or conduct experiments testing the predictions of the model). If the test fails, we modify or discard the model.
f. Inquiry through course content into the origins, bases and consequences of intellectual bias. Intellectual bias in physics can result in faulty theoretical models and is readily tested by experimental investigation in combination with the critical thinking, analysis and exploration of assumptions discussed above.
g. Consideration of human diversity is not appropriate to the course. The purpose of the discipline of physics is to explore the diversity of the physical world.
PHYS 343 Home Page
Enrollment Statistics
NSF Final Report
Comments?Questions? Sage Advise? Contact Stephen Ducharme at: sducharme1@unl.edu
Department
of Physics and Astronomy
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
© 2008 Stephen Ducharme
This Page Last Updated: the last time I got around to it.