Spectroscopy and Electronic Interferometry for Undergraduate Laboratories

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This project is part of a long-term program to improve applied optics teaching and research in the Physics Department. This project improves introductory and intermediate lectures and labs and, also, undergraduate research opportunities. The first project goal is to improve instruction in the many courses involving light spectra through the purchase of a portable user-friendly rapid-scan spectroscope. A computer display or LCD projector makes each spectrum visible to classes of up to 80 students. In elementary and intermediate course lectures and labs, sunlight, tungsten and fluorescent lamps, laser sources, and gas tube sources can be quickly compared. Filters can be examined, including UV absorption by clear glass versus clear plastic versus sunglasses, for example. For intermediate to advanced project and research work by physics majors, holographically formed filters can be characterized, gas-tube spectra measured, and emission, absorption, and reflection by solids studied. This experience lays the foundation for some physics students to participate in a new research lab emphasizing spectroscopy of semiconductor surfaces that has been established in the Physics Department. A second project goal is to strengthen the department's capabilities in electronically based interferometry. Two existing student and faculty research programs, one on holographically based measurement of surface roughness using scattered laser light and the other on holographic interferometry applied to musical acoustics are strengthened by the introduction of electronic fringe measurement. A computer-interfaced CCD camera is obtained for this part of the project along with the upgrade of an optical table used both for course work and for musical acoustics research.