This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5). The award supports the upgrade and renovation of undergraduate research laboratories on the lower level of the 19-year-old F.W. Olin Hall of Science at Gustavus Adolphus College. The proposed renovation will impact all members of the physics department in that it will both enable cutting-edge research and research training in each laboratory and further strengthen the entire physics department research facility. A new cyber-enabled acoustics laboratory and a research laboratory for a new faculty member, dedicated to the cooling and trapping of polar molecules, will play a particularly strategic role in enhancing the research capacity of the physics department and in increasing research training for undergraduate students. Enhanced research capabilities will also provide greater research training opportunities for students in physics, chemistry and general education. Anticipated collaborations with research universities and other liberal arts colleges will broaden the scope and level of the department's research, and likewise provide Gustavus students with opportunities to contribute to and benefit from well-known research groups.
This award, funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5), focused on upgrading five different physics research laboratories at Gustavus Adolphus College. The Gustavus physics department is nationally recognized for the number of annual graduates, as an origin of future Ph.D.s, and for the quality of its faculty/student research program. This grant provided substantial upgrades to the infrastructure that has, and will continue to enable cutting-edge research and research training for undergraduate students in physics and cognate disciplines. During the two decades that the physics department has resided in F.W. Olin Hall, the maturation of the department members research programs resulted in several critical needs that were addressed by this award: An upgrade of the HVAC system to eliminate humidity and noise/vibration issues Sound/vibration isolation of a laboratory space for acoustics research A laboratory space optimized for a new research program dedicated to the cooling and trapping of polar molecules Laboratory safety enhancements in laboratories containing high-powered laser systems Mechanical, electrical and network infrastructure to support collaborative faculty/student research programs in sustainability, optics, acoustics, condensed matter and low-temperature physics The impact of these upgrades has already been observed in the first year since the completion of the construction. The real impact of these upgrades will be on the research trajectories of faculty and students for decades to come. Intellectual Merit: Each of the separate research programs (optical scattering and imaging, acoustics, sustainability, condensed matter and surface physics, and low-temperature molecular and atomic systems) is performing experiments that are both examining fundamental science and their practical applications. The new facilities have enhanced faculty/student capabilities in each of these areas, and will have continued impact for years to come. For example, the sound isolation and upgrades of the acoustics laboratory has enabled collaborative research in pipe-organ acoustics that would have produced prohibitively disruptive sound levels in previous facilities. The same upgrades also enabled high-precision vibroacoustic studies utilizing ultrasound radiation force excitation that were previously difficult because of external noise and HVAC interference. Broader Impacts: This physics department-wide facilities project will have broad impact in a number of ways. There has been a direct impact on the range and quality of research opportunities available to undergraduate students during the first full year after completion of the construction. Physics students outfitted numerous sensors and controls into the ground-source heating loop utilized for the new reheats installed for the project. Therefore the new HVAC itself will enable sustainability research involving optimization and control of this ground-source heat system. One of the PI’s has recently received a collaborative NSF grant with researchers from University of Massachusetts-Lowell that relies on the newly enhanced acoustical, mechanical and network infrastructure; this project is focused on ultrasound-radiation force excitation research in fields ranging from airplane engines to medical implants. Future students will benefit from the capability to engage in high-quality undergraduate faculty/student research projects. As with previous projects, the results of all projects in the research facility have been, and will be disseminated widely through traditional and Web-based publications, and faculty and student presentations at national and regional meetings.
