The Department of Chemistry is acquiring equipment which functions as a signal processing module and is being used to teach students in upper level courses how to interface computers to instruments found in the typical research or industrial chemistry laboratory. The equipment includes a function generator, spectrum analyzer, variable bandwidth preamplifier, lock-in amplifier, boxcar integrator, and various pieces of software and small accessories. The purpose of this project is to assure that graduating chemistry majors have hands-on experience with and knowledge of the major means by which signals from various chemistry lab experiments and apparatus are conditioned, amplified, and interfaced to computers. The students also are learning how to use a computer to drive external experiments and are being taught the operating principles behind Fourier transform and equivalent digital signal processing techniques which are now ubiquitous in modern chemistry labs. The skills which the students are learning are being used in their undergraduate research projects.
