Development of the Undergraduate Physical Chemistry Laboratory: Laser-Based System for Spectroscopic and Kinetic Studies

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Chemistry (12) Insufficient instrumentation currently limits curriculum diversity in the Physical Chemistry Laboratory conducted at this institution. With a survey indicating that many students are not motivated to study physical chemistry, the challenge has been to develop course content which encourages these students. This project consists of setting up a new physical chemistry curriculum basedon a wavelength tunable nanosecond pulse laser system. The objectives are: (1) to expose students to interdisciplinary topics which integrate the fields of biology, physics, and chemistry, and (2) to include topics on fast kinetics and electronic relaxation. Topics will include the inversion rate of sucrose catalyzed by enzyme, conformational transition of polypeptides or diblock co-polymer, the effect of a quencher on the electronic relaxation of an aromatic compound, solvent response to fast heat flow, and photolysis of benzophenone. These topics demonstrate how physical chemistry concepts are applied to biological systems and introduce the concept of real time probing of a chemical event. Core instrument of this project is a Nd:YAG pumped Optical Parametric Oscillator (OPO) based laser spectrometer system. Included in this OPO-based system are monochromator, photomultiplier tube detector, digital storage oscilloscope, and a CCD camera. The proposed system enables introduction of previously unstudied experimental methods: optical rotation, scattering experiment, fluorescence lifetime measurement, thermal lens calorimetry, and laser-flash photolysis. Planned laboratory experiments are adaptations from the Journal of Physical Chemistry and the program at Harvey Mudd College which was supported by earlier NSF funding. The evaluation will be provided by an off-campus advisory committee.