Benedictine College is introducing a series of new laboratories in optics which allow students to study the nature of light with equipment similar to what they will find in industry and research. While investigating such standard optical phenomena as diffraction, blackbody radiation, and image formation they are learning both the physics behind several types of detectors (photomultiplier tubes, photodiode arrays, CCDs), lasers, and fiber optics, and they are becoming familiar with tools that they are likely to encounter in graduate school or in industry. Experiments using these instruments are being introduced into the Optics Laboratory course, which is required of all physics and astronomy majors. The Optics lecture course, taken simultaneously, is being changed to include extensive discussion of these objects and their underlying physics. Some of the equipment is also being used in upper-division astronomy laboratory exercises. All this equipment is being used by physics, astronomy, and biology students in undergraduate research projects. Such research efforts are graduation requirements for majors in these three areas, and these detectors are in almost continual demand. The college is matching the award with an equal amount of funds.//
