The equipment in this project is being used in a popular upper division physical optics laboratory course; "Modern Experimental Optics." Students are performing fourteen experiments in physical optics, interferometry, optical modulation and heterodyning, laser physics, and time-resolved spectroscopy, but the equipment is mostly generic, having wide utility beyond these particular applications. Individual items of significant cost include two optical tables, a home-built nitrogen laser, an electro-optic modulator, and a fast analog data-acquisition system.In general, the experiments require students to assemble an optical system from components, see phenomena they have read about, and use the phenomena to make a physical measurement. For example, in a study of Fabry-Perot interferometers, the students start with a HeNe laser, a few mirrors and lenses, mounts, and a piezo-electric translator and come out at the end with a sensitive reflectivity value for the low-loss mirrors used in the interferometer.Most of the experiments are based on the Principal Investigator's experiences as a postdoc and in industry; in general, they have not been discussed in the literature. Consequently, they are being published as papers or laboratory manuals for those projects which turn out to be most useful as teaching tools.
