The Department of Chemistry will require a nitrogen laser and computer-interfaced UV/VIS spectrophotometer to improve their undergraduate education in chemistry. The first part of this project will bring computers into the physical chemistry laboratory to give students experience in using computer-interfaced instrumentation and to reduce the time required to analyze raw data. It is hoped this will increase the appeal of this course to prospective chemistry majors and reduce a major barrier to their completing a B.S. major in chemistry. The combination of computers with high-resolution plotters will also allow quantitative estimation of errors to be made much more quickly and more routinely. The computers will also be used with a molecular orbital program to interpret the absorption spectra of dyes and aromatic compounds and to teach the BASIC programming language. The new instrumentation will allow the introduction of three new experiments into the physical chemistry laboratory course as well as significant upgrading of several existing experiments. The nitrogen laser will allow for measurement of fluorescence decay times in the 1 nanosecond range. Other new experiments include "The Photochemistry of NO2" and "The Statistical Thermodynamics of Iodine Sublimation."
