Awarded funds will be used to upgrade the Western Michigan University tandem Van de Graaff Accelerator Laboratory. This laboratory plays a key role in helping the Department of Physics to meet its various research and educational goals. While the accelerator is functional and heavily used certain components of it and the laboratory have become obsolete. Acquisition and implementation of the equipment provided by this grant will greatly enhance the operation and capabilities of the laboratory, and this upgrading will provide new opportunities for faculty researchers and better state-of-the art training for students. Currently, Department of Physics faculty utilize the accelerator for a broad spectrum of research activities including atomic physics, nuclear physics, condensed matter physics, and physics applications. The accelerator facility has been and continues to be an important component in faculty research that has received external support. Accelerator research has resulted in numerous publications in leading physics journals and has formed the basis for numerous graduate and undergraduate student research projects. The training of future scientists is a particularly important function of the laboratory. In this regard, students are provided a unique hands-on experience with major research instrumentation in close collaboration with faculty mentors. Such an experience is not often available to most physics students, especially those at the undergraduate level or those in high school. Additionally, researchers from other institutions, nationally and internationally, have frequently come to WMU to collaborate with department faculty on projects utilizing the laboratory. During recent years, the laboratory has formed the basis for several Ph.D. dissertation projects, M.A. thesis projects, Honors College thesis projects for undergraduate physics majors, and the senior mentorship projects for several high school students from the Kalamazoo Area Mathematics and Science Center. Apart from these research and research training uses, the laboratory has been used every semester for more than 25 years as part of the department's undergraduate modern physics laboratory that is generally taken by sophomore level students, and as part of an advanced laboratory course taken by upper level undergraduate physics majors and by graduate students. Additionally, students from area high schools and colleges visit the laboratory regularly to make use of the accelerator as part of their physics curricula. During its history, the accelerator has served as an instructional tool to literally thousands of university and high school students. It is anticipated that, in addition to continuing and expanding the research and educational uses of the accelerator, the upgraded facility will help in the recruitment of students to the university and help to attract additional outside collaborators. Through its diversity of uses and applications the WMU accelerator laboratory closely integrates research with education, and provides important outreach activities, in a manner that is rarely encountered at most universities. The upgraded facility will help to enhance the learning environment by providing greater access to state-of-the-art instrumentation.
