Instrumentation for an Undergraduate Crystal Optics Laboratory

物理系正在购买仪器，为光学专业的学生提供光学晶体学原理和应用的实践机会，超出了本科光学和固态物理课程通常讨论的水平。该部门正在采购温控液浴、偏光显微镜、晶体模型、高压电源和晶体抛光设备。这些仪器使学生能够培养高质量的水溶性晶体并表征其光学特性。它使他们能够构建和研究一个格兰-汤普森偏振器，一个非线性倍频器和一个电光调制器。这个项目意义重大，因为它使本科实验室更广泛地接触到双折射非线性和电光晶体的特性。这些材料目前是研究生、政府和工业研究实验室大量研究的对象。该项目使他们在职业生涯的早期阶段构建设备成为可能。最后，它通过出版正在开发的学生实验室实验为其他机构服务。

The Physics Department is acquiring instrumentation which provide students in the Optics Concentration with hands-on exposure to the principles and application of optical crystallography above and beyond the level normally discussed in undergraduate optics and solid state physics courses. The department is purchasing a temperature controlled fluid bath, a polarizing microscope, crystal models, a high voltage power supply and crystal polishing equipment. These instruments allow students to grow high quality water-soluble crystals and to characterize their optical properties. It enables them to construct and study a Glan-Thompson polarizer, a nonlinear frequency doubler and an electro-optic modulator. This project is singificant because it brings to the undergraduate laboratory more extensive exposure to the properties of birefringent nonlinear and electro-optic crystals. These materials are currently the object of a great deal study in graduate, government, and industrial research laboratories. The project enables devices constructed from them at an earlier stage of their careers. Finally, it serves other institutions through the publication of student lab experiments which are being developed.