A Nd:YAG Pumped Dye Laser for the Undergraduate Laboratories

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This project supports the department's use of a Nd:YAG-pumped dye laser and the associated electronics equipment in the undergraduate chemistry program. Incorporation of a pulsed, tunable laser into the teaching and research laboratories reflects contemporary research activities in physical and inorganic chemistry. The new instrumentation has a major impact on the upper-division teaching and laboratory courses. Beginning with the spectroscopy laboratory of the physical chemistry sequence, students learn the basics of lasing and tuning, collecting signals, data acquisition, and instrument-to-computer interfacing. They then apply this know-how to collecting the absorption spectra of Neon and Argon. Building on this experiment, students measure and assign the one- and two-photon absorption spectra of phenanthrene. In the senior-level inorganic laboratory, students use the equipment to investigate the long-range electron-transfer kinetics through metalloproteins. Here, they learn the fundamentals of transient absorption and emission spectroscopy. Additionally, the laser system may be used extensively in two undergraduate research laboratories, one that focuses on inorganic photochemistry and the other, on materials research.