Specialized upper-division laboratories in fields of contemporary interest are an important component of a vital physics curriculum. This Occidental College Physics Department project is developing two such laboratories in the areas of solid state and plasma physics. These laboratories, to be taken concurrently with lecture courses already offered by the department, complement the lecture presentation of particular topics as well as broaden the scope of these courses by introducing students to experimental techniques of the type used in current scientific research.In the solid state laboratory, students investigate important condensed matter phenomena such as resistivity, the polarity of charge carriers, the crystalline bandgap, electron-hole recombination, impurity doping of a semiconductor, and semiconductor statistics. The experiments familiarize students with cryogenic techniques and introduce state-of-the-art instrumentation such as a lock-in amplifier, scanning monochromator and digitizing oscilloscope. Many of the experiments involve computer-controlled data acquisition and sophisticated data analysis schemes (e.g., boxcar correlator).The plasma laboratory, the first of its kind at a small liberal arts college, is based on two custom made plasma-containment machines: the double plasma and the pure electron plasma devices. Through seven experiments, students explore single particle drifts, plasma wave dispersion and damping, plasma stability, and transport. Additionally, students become acquainted with vacuum technology and computer- controlled data acquisition/analysis techniques.NSF grant funds are being matched with funds from non-federal sources.
