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Optics For Scientists And Engineers

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 Session S4A

OPTICS FOR SCIENTISTS AND ENGINEERS

Orven F. Swenson1 , David A. Rogers2 , Floyd M. Patterson3 , and Andres Campiglia4

Abstract  Faculty members from three departments at
North Dakota State University (Physics, Electrical and
Computer Engineering, and Chemistry) have cooperated to
develop a joint program in optical science and engineering.
An option in Optical Engineering has been established
within the major in Electrical Engineering and an option in
Optical Science and Engineering has been established
within the major in Physics. A core course, “Optics for
Scientists and Engineers,” was introduced in Fall Semester,
2001 and is being offered again in 2002. This new course
provides students with the fundamentals necessary to enable
them to successfully apply optics in their respective majors.
Students learn applied optics through a sequence of
multidisciplinary laboratory experiences. This course was
adapted from a similar course in the Optical Science and
Engineering Program, New Jersey Institute of Technology.
During Fall Semester 2001, seventeen students successfully
completed the course. Interest in the course offering in the
fall of 2002 is high. In general the course has awakened an
interest in optics among engineering and science majors.
or first-year graduate course with prerequisites of University
Physics II (Electricity and Magnetism) and the
corresponding level of calculus. Offering three credits, this
one-semester course consists of 30 hours of lecture and 45
hours in the laboratory. The schedule is as follows: (a) first
two weeks: three one-hour lectures per week; (b) ten weeks:
two one-hour lectures and one three-hour lab per week; (c)
three weeks: laboratory five hours per week to work on
major-related experiment; and (d) one week: students
present results during three classroom hours. Lectures are
based on Eugene Hecht’s Optics [3] to provide the
background required for performing the experiments. The
laboratories are scheduled in three-hour blocks. Students are
paired to maximize their hands-on experience. A graduate
student teaching assistant is present in the laboratory for all
the groups. During the first offering of the course, a member
of the faculty teaching team was also present during each
laboratory session. In the next section the position of this
course in the curriculum along with two more goals for the
course will be considered.

Index Terms  electrical engineering, laboratory course,
optics, physics.
INTRODUCTION
A rigorous course in applied optics has been developed at
North Dakota State University (NDSU) through the
cooperation of three departments at the University: Physics,
Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Chemistry. This
course was modeled after a course that originated at New
Jersey Institute of Technology in the Optical Science and
Engineering Program [1]-[2]. The new course, Physics/ECE
411/611, Optics for Scientis ts and Engineers, was introduced
in Fall Semester, 2001 and is being offered again in 2002.
The primary goal of this new course is to provide students
with the fundamentals necessary to enable them to
successfully apply optics in their respective majors. It is a
course in which students learn applied optics through a
sequence of multidisciplinary laboratory experiences. This
is accomplished through hands-on use of state-of-the-art
equipment to experience and understand the most important
concepts and phenomena of optics (including fiber optics).
The course is open to students in engineering and science
who have the appropriate backgrounds. This is a senior-level
OPTICAL SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING OPTIONS
Optics plays a significant role in many areas of science,
engineering, and medicine since it can be both a conveyor
and sensor of information and energy [4]-[5]. Since 1999
NDSU faculty members from the College of Engineering
and Architecture and from the College of Science and
Mathematics have been developing a joint program in
optical science and engineering. In Engineering and
Architecture, an option in Optical Engineering has been
established within the major in Electrical Engineering. In
Science and Mathematics, an option in Optical Science and
Engineering has been established within the major in
Physics. Aside from this option, Physics already has an
option in engineering physics within its major in Physics.
The option in Optical Engineering is the eighth option
available to majors in Electrical Engineering. The other
options are Biomedical Engineering, Communication and
Signal Processing, Computer Engineering, Control
Engineering, Electromagnetics, Electronics and
Microelectronics, and Power Systems. Students in the
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering can also
major directly in Computer Engineering. These physics and
ECE majors (i.e., all options) lead to the B.S. degree.

Partial support for this work was provided by the National Science Foundation’s Course, Curriculum and Laboratory Improvement Program under grant
DUE - 0088516.
1
Orven F. Swenson, Dept. of Physics, North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND 58105, Orven.Swenson@ndsu.nodak.edu
2
David A. Rogers, Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering, North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND 58105, David.Rogers@ndsu.nodak.edu
3
Floyd M. Patterson, Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering, North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND 58105, Floyd.Patterson@ndsu.nodak.edu
4
Andres Campiglia, Dept. of Chemistry, North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND 58105, Andres.Campiglia@ndsu.nodak.edu
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ECE Department optical engineering students the deleted material is covered in the laboratory, and
customarily take an additional nine to 13 credits in modern additional topics not covered in the course are added through
and optical physics and nine to 12 credits in optical the laboratory experiments. The lecture material covered is
engineering. The new course in optics for scientists and listed in Table I.
engineers is considered to be an optical engineering course
for the ECE Department students. TABLE I
These options will provide new opportunities for ECE P HYSICS/ECE 411/611 OPTICS FOR SCIENTISTS AND ENGINEERS
students and Physics students to obtain optical engineering
positions in industry while also equipping them for graduate Wk Topic Text Lab
studies in this area. This should also increase the 1 Properties of waves Ch 1, 2
2 EM nature of light Ch 3.1-3.4
interdisciplinary work between the departments. One 3 Dispersion Ch 3.5-3.7 1
example will be the performance of capstone projects that 4 Index of refraction Ch 4.1-4.5 2
are joint activities of Physics and the ECE Department. 5 Lenses, stops Ch 5.1-5.3 3
As stated earlier, the primary objective of the optics 6 Mirrors/prisms Ch 5.4-5.5 4
7 Fiber optics and sensors Ch 5.6 5
teaching laboratory is to benefit students by providing optics 7 Exam 1
tools and knowledge to take back to their respective 8 Polarization Ch 8.1-8.2 6
disciplines. The course includes a major-related optics 9 Reflection S/P Ch 4.6-4.9 7
experiment to contribute toward success in this objective. A 10 Superposition of waves Ch 7.1-7.2 8
11 Interference Ch 9 9
secondary goal is to incorporate components of the optics 12 Diffraction Ch 10 10
teaching laboratory into the currently offered optics and 12 Exam 2
optical electronics courses that do not presently have 13 major
laboratory components. This facility will serve as the 14 major
15 major
laboratory for ECE 457/657, the Department of Electrical 16 Present results
and Computer Engineering course in optical signal
transmission (based on [6]). These are required courses for Course materials were available to students through the
the optics options described above. Future development of university’s Blackboard CourseInfo 4.0 website. While two
the optics options will involve the incorporation of extensive exams were scheduled in the fall of 2001 for the lecture
hands-on experience in most optics courses. A tertiary goal material, the majority of students felt that there should be
is to use the equipment to interest top regional high school three exams for the amount of material covered. While we
juniors and seniors in science and engineering careers. This originally proposed six experiments designed to be
is being done through the annual North Dakota Governor’s completed in one or two three-hour blocks, in practice we
School held for six weeks on the NDSU campus for a select found it easier to break them into the ten separate
group of 20 high school students. This outreach is experiments listed in Table II.
particularly important for students from small rural high
schools that have little or no laboratory equipment and often TABLE II
do not offer physics courses. P HYSICS/ECE 411/611 OPTICS LABORATORIES
The laboratory experiments are modeled on those
developed at New Jersey Institute of Technology [1]-[2] and Lab Topic
also make use of some experiments developed by Newport 1 Detection of light
Corporation [7]. The University has provided a large room 2 Absorption
3 Index of refraction, total internal reflection, and critical
on the first floor of the building that houses the Physics
angle
Department. The new laboratory stations that have been 4 Lenses and simple lens systems
developed are expected to stimulate the development of 5 Fiber optic numerical aperture
additional advanced optics laboratory courses. 6 Fiber optic light attenuation
7 Single-mode fibers
8 Optical polarization
ORGANIZATION OF THE COURSE 9 Interference and diffraction
10 Spectrometry
Our approach was to offer an upper level undergraduate Major Optics project related to academic major
course targeted to the full spectrum of science and
engineering students. This goal limited us to a three- A final optics experiment related to the students
semester-hour course in order for students to fit it into their academic major (engineering, chemistry, physics, etc.) was
curricula. A three-hour optics lecture course was previously added for the last four-week project. This required the
offered in the physics department using the same text Optics students to do background learning on their own, and they
by Hecht. The addition of the teaching laboratory resulted in presented their results as a PowerPoint® presentation to the
the elimination of 18 lecture hours and required the entire class during the final week of the course. A number
consequent reduction in the course material covered. Part of

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of excellent topics were introduced to the class in this way

that would not normally be covered in an optics course.

IMPLEMENTATION
Our optics course was implemented by adapting successful
laboratory experiments developed under NSF funding, at the
New Jersey Institute of Technology, and through
commercially available fiber optics kits from Newport
Corporation. This was accomplished surprisingly well, but
there were some lessons learned that we wish to share. The
principal investigator visited Professor John Frederici at
NJIT and toured their teaching laboratory. He graciously
provided copies of all the laboratory experiment write-ups
that they have in addition to providing access to most of
their materials over the Web. The suggestions and ideas
from observing the operations first hand were invaluable. FIGURE 1
For example, four 3x5 foot optical breadboards were NDSU OPTICS T EACHING LABORATORY
originally planned as a cost-saving approach. Based on
inputs from NJIT we went the extra mile and obtained 4x8 measuring the intensities of diffraction patterns using
foot Newport optical tables (see Figure 1). These worked out motorized translation stages and/or CCD cameras. We
very well, allowing plenty of space for the laboratory chose a LabVIEW™ Instruments Starter Kit from National
experiments and enough room so that students had their own Instruments that includes a high-speed digitizer
dedicated space for the major-related experiments. We (oscilloscope card), digital multimeter card, and function
recommend such a visit prior to writing a proposal for generator card installed in Pentium III personal computers in
adapting a course, if possible, since a number of our original addition to the LabVIEW Full Development System for our
ideas were revised based on experiences at NJIT. We extend data acquisition [8]. This was a cost-saving approach over
an invitation to anyone who is planning or currently has an purchasing individual instruments and also allows us to do
optics teaching laboratory to visit us and exchange computer acquisition.
experiences. The optical fiber experiments offered important
After receiving the NSF grant, purchasing the required opportunities and challenges. The experience of the students
equipment was the major activity to prepare for the course. in cleaving their own fibers was deemed invaluable.
Seventy-five separate items were ordered (kits, systems, Launching the fiber into the single mode fibers was very
computers, individual components, etc.), usually in multiples time consuming using the manual alignment apparatus. In
of four. The specifications for each component or system order to save time, the laser and holder were aligned prior to
needed to be evaluated to determine if it would work for the the laboratory.
proposed experiments. Also, because our budget was very M AJOR-RELATED EXPERIMENTS
limited, we needed to do cost comparisons between the
suppliers for each component. The next major activity was Students have a choice of performing one of several major
to adapt the write-ups to match the equipment that was experiments as their final course activity. This experimental
obtained and to integrate them into the course syllabus. effort normally involves pairs of students with common
Often the write-ups required additional modifications during
interests. Typically these advanced experiments involve
the first course laboratory section in which the experimentprojects in optics, chemistry, image processing, and fiber
was offered. An example of difficulty in meshing the optics.
experiments together was the acquisition of HeNe lasers for The major-related experiments were selected by the
the Newport Fiber Optics kits. They were optimized for students and done in groups of two or three. They were also
launching light into single-mode fibers, but their beam required to write a group research paper on their experiment.
waists were too small with consequent large beam Their topics were:
divergence for doing several of the NJIT experiments, such • Design and Implementation of a Laser Seismograph
as the laser telescope, without first expanding the laser • The Fiberoptic Interferometer
beam.
• Optical Analog Voice Transmission System
We hope to follow the NJIT approach of computer
• Multimode Intensity Sensors
interfaced experiments. This was not possible within the
• Optical Transmission of Audio Signals
time and budget constraints of our initial course offering. In
particular, we plan to automate the experiments for • Vibration Measurement Using Laser Interferometry
• Specular and Diffuse Reflection Comparisons of
Surfaces at IR and Visible Wavelengths
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• Emissivity and Infrared Imaging
Students in the fall 2001 offering of the course were not
prepared to make the selection of an experiment related to
their major. This is being addressed in the 2002 offering by
emphasizing it at the beginning of the course and by
introducing possible topics throughout the course.
Most students expend considerable effort in performing
their major-related experiment. It was not uncommon for
them to redefine or to redo part of the experiment to either
obtain meaningful results or to refine marginal data. The
final outcomes of these experiments were presented orally
(with PowerPoint) and a written report was also submitted.
Some presentations included a live demonstration. All
instructors and students were expected to attend all oral
presentations, which required some arranged hours on a few
days and allowed each student group to respond to questions
from the audience. Instructors evaluated the oral
presentations based on technical content, oral delivery,
visual aids, and relevance.
Alternative interpretations by the audience of
experimental results created spirited discussions among
everyone, sometimes with no definitive conclusions. The
live demonstrations were of considerable interest, even when
they didn’t demonstrate the sensitivity that might be
expected in a scientific setting. Refinement of experimental
results is expected to improve in the future as major projects
are initiated earlier in the semester. The written reports of
the major experiments were due shortly after the oral
presentations, and the qualities of these were mixed.
Detailed drawings of the various layouts and diagrams, and
rewriting some of the interpretations required more time
than was available at the very end of the semester. The
instructors also learned that the major projects needed
careful guidance so that meaningful quantitative data, as
well as qualitative interpretations, were obtained.
EVALUATION
The new optics laboratory provides a great experience for
students. Many of these students see lots of labs dealing
with circuits and computers, but this course gives them a
chance to exercise their mechanical skills, spatial reasoning,
and application of optics theory to very concrete
experimental situations.
The experiments can be very time consuming. This is
probably an inherent part of the learning experience. In
some cases the time on task will be reduced as the
instructors gain more experience with the course and its
laboratories and, hopefully, find more student-friendly
components to use in the experiments.
The instructors put much more time into the course than
would be dictated by its student-credit-hour value, and this
will continue in the near term. The administration has
granted a reduction in teaching load to facilitate this. The
team of four instructors worked well together even though
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the workload distribution among them varied. The success
of the course would be diminished significantly without the
involvement of the four.
The students are challenged by the theoretical and
experimental rigor of the course. Their background is two
years of calculus and differential equations and one year of
university physics. In principle they have the appropriate
background, but this is probably one of the first times some
of the students have had to apply particular results from
previous courses to an area that is new to them. One plan
for the future to help students in this regard would be to put
some review material on the Web.
It took some students time to become accustomed to the
team approach that was used in the labs. Some reports were
written as group efforts. At times the writing fell on one
student who would turn the work in without consulting the
other one or two students involved. To deal with this
situation, questions on the laboratory experiments were
included in the examinations in order to assess each
student’s understanding of laboratory procedures.
Seventeen students completed a survey questionnaire on
various aspects of the course. Most students (94%) claimed
they went from a novice’s knowledge of the material to
qualified knowledge. Many (88%) would prefer more
frequent examinations. All students were very active in
doing their major projects, but they indicated a preference
for an earlier start.
The students felt that at the beginning of the course they
were not competent in laboratory techniques covered in this
course (76%), but, on the other hand, they felt that their
theoretical background for the course was good (also 76%).
The survey results further indicated that prescribed
experiments on light detection, absorption, refraction
indices, lenses, fiber optic phenomena, polarization,
interference and diffraction were valuable in meeting the
course objectives (88%). The surveys also helped to focus
instructor effort on certain aspects of particular experiments
that needed to be improved.
An open house for the new optics laboratory was held
near the end of the Fall Semester of 2001 and the campus
community was invited. Students in the course have shared
by word of mouth their experiences, and the instructors have
heard in various contexts on campus a general favorable
response that is very heartening.
CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE PLANS
The Optics for Scientists and Engineers course has been very
successful. We plan to offer it annually and possibly every
semester if the anticipated interest is achieved. Because of
the hands-on experience we are limited to 24 students per
semester. We plan to incorporate the optics teaching
laboratory into all the courses for our Optical Engineering
and Optical Science and Engineering options. Immediate
applications will be to the existing Optical Electronics
(second harmonic and parametric generation) and Optical
November 6 - 9, 2002, Boston, MA

Signal Transmission (fiber optics) courses. Anticipated
future courses include: (i) a computer-equipment interface
course based on LabVIEW (using motorized translation
stages, optical detectors and spectrometers) in the teaching
laboratory and (ii) a laser course.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We would like to acknowledge the support of our
department chairs and other administrators at NDSU along
with Dr. Orlando R. Baiocchi (former ECE Department
Chair) who was instrumental in initiating this project and Dr.
Khan Iftekharuddin (former NDSU faculty member) who
was an original co-PI of this project.
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Session S4A
REFERENCES
[1] Barat, R., J. Federici, A. Johnson, H. Gebel, and T. Chang, “Optical
Science and Engineering Curriculum at NJIT,” Journal of
Engineering Education, 1998 Supplement, pp. 575-582.
[2] New Jersey Institute of Technology Optical Science and Engineering
(OPSE) program,
http://www.njit.edu/Directory/Centers/OPSE/OPSE301/opse301.htm .
[3] Hecht, E., Optics, San Francisco: Addison Wesley, Fourth Edition,
2002.
[4] National Research Council, Committee on Optical Science and
Engineering, Harnessing Light, Optical Science and Engineering for
the 21st Century, Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1998.
[5] Johnson, A. M. and C. B. Hitz, “Career Opportunities in Optics,”
Physics Today, May 2000, pp 25-28.
[6] Keiser, G., Optical Fiber Communications, New York: McGraw-Hill,
Third Edition, 2000, pp. 533-568.
[7] Newport Corporation Web site: http://www.newport.com.
[8] National Instruments Web site: http://www.ni.com.
November 6 - 9, 2002, Boston, MA