Applied Optics Laboratories in an Undergraduate Optical Sciences and Engineering Program

应用光学是工程师和科学家的一项使能技术，作为教学、研究和工业的工具正变得越来越广泛。因此，应用光学应成为本科工科和理科教育的重要组成部分。为此，新泽西理工学院(NJIT)目前开设了光学科学与工程(OPSE)本科课程。这项计划是由一个跨学科的研究人员团队创建的，并获得了国家科学基金会的研究与课程开发(CRCD)联合拨款。OPSE教学实验室还通过暑期推广计划向大学预科学生和高中科学教师开放。OPSE课程由初级和高级课程组成，向跨学科的学生讲授基础光学和应用光学。这些课程将讲座和实验相结合，在这些课程中，学生们被要求在自己的领域和其他领域学习和应用光学。目前，大多数实验都是用低功率的氦-霓虹激光器和光电二极管探测器进行的。然而，许多重要的光学现象(例如光纤中的拉曼散射)和应用技术(例如激光手术)需要更大的光学功率和具有波长分辨的检测。该项目将使用两个更高功率的激光器--具体地说，是二极管泵浦的Nd：YLF单元--以及两个带有电荷耦合器件(CCD)探测器的单色仪。该设备促进了几个新的实验(如谐波产生、光折变、介电击穿)，这些实验使用了研究中经常使用的光学现象，从而进一步完成了CRCD将研究与课程开发相结合的使命。此外，它允许本科生甚至高中生和他们的老师在激动人心的实验中使用最先进的激光，而这些实验通常只有研究生和他们的研究导师才能体验到。

Applied optics is an enabling technology for engineers and scientists, becoming more widespread as a tool for teaching, research, and industry. Therefore, applied optics should be an integral component of undergraduate engineering and science education. To this end, the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) currently offers its Optical Science and Engineering (OPSE) undergraduate curriculum. This program has been created by an interdisciplinary team of research faculty with a Combined Research-Curriculum Development (CRCD) grant from NSF. The OPSE teaching laboratory is also opened to pre-college students and high school science teachers through summer outreach programs. Composed of junior and senior level courses, the OPSE curriculum teaches fundamental and applied optics to an interdisciplinary student audience. The courses combine lecture and experiments in which students are challenged to learn and apply optics within their own fields as well as others. Currently, the majority of experiments are performed with low power Helium-Neon lasers and photodiode detectors. Many important optical phenomena (e.g. Raman scattering in fibers) and applied techniques (e.g. laser surgery), however, require greater optical powers and detection with wavelength discrimination. This project will use two higher power lasers -- specifically, diode-pumped Nd:YLF units -- and two monochromators with charged coupled device (CCD) detectors. This equipment facilitates several new experiments (e.g. harmonic generation, photorefractivity, dielectric breakdown) which employ optical phenomena that are often utilized in research, thus further fulfilling the CRCD mission of combining research with curriculum development. In addition, it allows undergraduates and even high school students and their teachers to use state-of-the-art lasers in exciting experiments which are usually only experienced by graduate students and their research advisors