Instrumentation for the Introductory and Advanced Optics Laboratories at Southern Illinois University

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Funds from this program are being used to acquire laboratory equipment and computers for use in an introductory and advanced optics laboratory course for physics and engineering majors. The laboratory courses are a part of a new optics program being instituted at Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville. The introductory laboratories are designed to use computers both as an aid to the collection of data, and for data analysis and modeling of optical systems. The advanced laboratory is designed to introduce students to lasers, fiber optics, and holography, and to provide them with a suitable background for conducting research in optics. While the field of optics has grown tremendously in terms of its technological importance, it is significant that there are no established optics programs at public institutions of higher education in the state of Illinois. The objective of the program is to use faculty expertise in the field of optics to develop a model optics curriculum that provides students with a marketable specialization in optics. Major instrumentation purchased under this program includes computers and data acquisition hardware, along with optical components for student use in experiments in holography, fiber-optics, spectroscopy, and thin-film physics. In addition, the equipment is being used in an annual series of workshops for high-school science students throughout the St. Louis area.NSF grant funds are being matched with funds from non-federal sources.