Integration of Photonics and Electronics in the Undergraduate Physics Laboratory

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This project is integrating electronics and photonics into a single upper-division physics laboratory course. The new course has been structured to take advantage of the strong pedagogical links between photonics and electronics, and to enable students to obtain both hands-on competence with the instrumentation and a thorough understanding of the theoretical principles. A hands-on electronics course has long been an important staple within many quality undergraduate physics programs. However, due to the enormous recent impact of laser-based photonics technologies, physics undergraduates must also obtain significant experience with the principles of photonics and fiber-optics instrumentation. Research and development in photonics technology has already had major effects on the U.S. economy. As they begin their graduate or industrial careers, physics students clearly benefit from an in-depth understanding of the advantages of photonics over electronics for many applications requiring high bandwidth, low loss, or improved sensitivity. It is imperative that students gain as much hands-on experience as possible, and that the course include current applications employing high-quality single-mode fiber. A lecture course in optics, is being required with the proposed laboratory course. The new laboratory can be taken either for two credits by physics majors, who are carrying out both electronics and photonics experiments, or for one credit by engineering science majors, who are conaentrating on the photonics investigations. The laboratory course structure serves as a model for widespread incorporation of photonics into the undergraduate physics curriculum.