NSF Award
9251337
When the principal investigator arrived at Hendrix College three years ago, there were no advanced optics courses and no optics laboratories at any level. Since we felt that an understanding of light and its interaction with matter is an essential part of a physics curriculum and that hands-on experiences will greatly enhance that understanding, the physics department has been making a concerted effort to remedy that situation. This project provides the laboratory equipment needed to implement optics laboratories and demonstrations throughout the physics curriculum. The non-science majors are being provided with an exposure to experimental optics through four contact hours of laboratories and demonstrations that are being integrated into their lecture sessions. For the science majors in our introductory courses, four of the laboratory sessions in the second term are devoted to optics. This provides 12 contact hours of experimental optics. The modern optics course has eight laboratory sessions, which provides 24 hours of contact time. Most physics majors participate in undergraduate research while at Hendrix. This project provides the basic resources for offering student research projects in optical data processing, holography, fiber optics, and laser physics. Since we provide for such a wide range of courses, the proposed equipment has multiple uses. Special attention has been paid in the purchase of the equipment to insure the compatibility of components between projects. Portions of all the apparatus is being woven into the laboratories at each level. The emphasis at the lower levels is in geometric and physical optics. At the upper levels, the emphasis shifts to more specific topics in contemporary optics.
