The Physics Department is acquiring instrumentation which provide students in the Optics Concentration with hands-on exposure to the principles and application of optical crystallography above and beyond the level normally discussed in undergraduate optics and solid state physics courses. The department is purchasing a temperature controlled fluid bath, a polarizing microscope, crystal models, a high voltage power supply and crystal polishing equipment. These instruments allow students to grow high quality water-soluble crystals and to characterize their optical properties. It enables them to construct and study a Glan-Thompson polarizer, a nonlinear frequency doubler and an electro-optic modulator. This project is singificant because it brings to the undergraduate laboratory more extensive exposure to the properties of birefringent nonlinear and electro-optic crystals. These materials are currently the object of a great deal study in graduate, government, and industrial research laboratories. The project enables devices constructed from them at an earlier stage of their careers. Finally, it serves other institutions through the publication of student lab experiments which are being developed.
