Facilities

The Physics and Astronomy Department is equipped with modern equipment and facilities. All of the offices, research and instructional laboratories have been newly constructed or renovated within the past 10 years. Some of the special advantages for study in this department are:

• Undergraduate laboratories all have networked computational facilities in the advanced, modern physics and wave labs.

• Special emphasis is placed on computational physics, and the undergraduate major who wishes to complete the senior research project in this area has access to numerous modern workstations that are networked to the campus mainframes and to the Ohio Supercomputer (Cray YMP) via a high-speed link.

• Astronomy facilities include of a 40 foot planetarium dome with Minolta projector, and

• A roof-top observatory with a half-meter Cassegrain reflector fitted with a high speed CCD camera. Numerous smaller telescopes are also available for astrophotography work.

Experimental apparatus for research in solid state-condensed matter physics includes:

• ion-pumped UHV system with a Fast Fourier Transform Infrared spectrometer for study of infrared optical properties of thin films

• Electron Spin Resonance system with 2 Tesla magnet for study of properties of magnetic thin films

• several cryostats for research on metals and superconductors down to 1 K, including rf SQUID system (Superconduction Quantum Interference Device) for sensitive voltage measurements.