PHYSICS 149: ADVANCED LABORATORY II

Independent, Student Research-level Experiments

 

Offered each SPRING semester.

 

Teacher: Athanasios Petridis

                Harvey Ingham, room 31C

                Phone: (515) 271-3723

                E-Mail: Athan.Petridis@drake.edu

 

 

Meeting Time:               Friday 2:30 pm - 3:00 pm and/or when needed.

Place:                           Harvey Ingham Hall, Room 215.

 

 

We will do four projects this spring.  Lab reports are the same as when you took Advanced Lab I.  Use the guidelines you received at that time.  We will schedule weekly meetings of each group on Friday afternoons for the discussion section.  Several faculty may attend each of these sessions.  The projects are lengthy.  You are responsible for having all projects done by the end of the semester, but don't delay working on them. You might have to work on more than one project at a time in order to complete your work.  Each project should take approximately 2-3 weeks. You should turn in your lab report for each experiment one to two weeks after its completion. All reports should be ready by the beginning of finals week. You may do the projects in the order you prefer.  

 

Project One

Complete one of the major project sections in the Spectroscopy Lab.  The manual is in Room 19.  Most sections have multiple experiments.  Choose the one that interests you the most.  Choices are:

1.      Identification of Spectra using a Czerny-Turner Spectrometer

2.      The Isotopic Structure of Hydrogen

3.      The Fabry-Perot Interferometer

4.      Molecular Spectra of Diatomic Molecules

5.      Intensity Calibration of Spectra

6.      Zeeman Effect

 

Project Two

Complete a project on Gamma-ray Spectroscopy using the computerized multichannel analyzer.  You'll have to figure out how to make it work (step-by-step) and what is happening. An outline of the project is available as a handout.

 

Project Three

Complete one of the two following computer projects:
1. Monte Carlo calculation of the mean free path of electrons in air. An outline of the project is available as a handout.
2. Solving the Shroedinger equation for the carbon monoxide molecule. An outline of the project is available as a handout.

 

Project Four

Complete the Nuclear Magnetic Resonance experiment. There is a reference manual on the experiment station.

 

 

Each experiment/report takes up to 25 points. The following is a scale for the total number of points collected.

  

Grading:    100 <= points  <= 85  is  A

                     85 <    points  <= 75  is  B

                     75 <    points  <= 65  is  C

                     65 <    points  <= 50  is  D

                     50 <    points  <=   0  is  F

 

The above scale is used only as a guide. The final letter grade is assigned according to the instructor’s opinion of the student. No extra-credit assignments are offered during or at the end of the semester.