Physics 351 Research in Physics
Spring 2005: Laser Spectroscopy
1 credit course, Tuesday at 2:30 - 5:30 pm

"It is characteristic of all deep human problems that they are not to be approached without some humor and some bewilderment - science is no exception"
- Freeman Dyson

        Course Goals:

• To help develop the skills necessary to conduct experimental research
• To enhance hands-on experimental skills
• To enhance problem solving and critical thinking skills
• To develop confidence to answer experimental questions
  
  Course Objectives:
  
  The student will:
• Learn to use Labview to control instruments (monochromator, oscilloscope, photomultiplier tube, power meter)
• Learn about safety issues involved with laser systems
• Learn to safely use the Nd:YAG laser system and Optical Parametric Oscillator (OPO) (see online laser safety manual)
• Understand and implement the experimental technique of photoluminescence spectroscopy
• Gain understanding in critically evaluating experimental data
• Gain some experience reading scientific literature

Introduction
Research is a fundamentally different experience than the work you do in lecture based (or even lab) courses. In research, there is no answer in the back of the book that is likely to help answer your research question. This makes research very challenging, but the hard work will pay off when your experiment starts to produce interesting data. For me, an experiment producing interesting data is extremely exciting. Ideally, this should excite you as well! One way for this to happen is for you to gain a sense of project ownership from this course. This can make doing science very fun and extremely rewarding. 

Texts:
No required text. Readings will be given based on handouts supplied by the instructor.

Course structure
For each credit hour, students are expected to spend at a minimum of 3 hours in the lab per week and another 2-3 hours inside or outside of lab. The amount of work you do in this course is at least as much as you would spend in a 1 credit lab course. In a lab course, you usually spend 3 hours in the lab per week plus time spent writing lab reports etc. We will set up short term (weekly) and long term (midterm, end of term) goals so that project progress can be checked. There are two main projects we will be working on 1) Spectroscopy of Undoped and Doped Cadmium Tungstate and 2) Spectroscopy of Undoped Yttrium Orthovanadate. There will be both team and individual aspects to the work that is done in this course.

Work product
Each student is required to create a work product based on their work this semester. This may take the form of a research paper, research poster, or oral presentation. As students decide on the format of their work product we will discuss the details and format of this.  

Grading
Your grade for this course will be based on the amount of effort you put into this course, the quality of your lab work, and the quality of your work product.

back to Research in Physics Spring 2005
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last updated 1/18/2005