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Spring 2019

PHYS 450-002: Advanced Physics Lab

Jan Opyrchal

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 Phys 450 - Spring 2019 Advanced Physics Laboratory

Physics 450 Course Syllabus:

Prerequisites: Phys 234

In the advanced Physics Laboratory students will learn about physical phenomena by performing
quantitative measurements of fundamental Physical constants, like the speed of light and
gravitational constant. Students will also gain experience with experimental techniques, such as
Raman spectroscopy and x-ray diffraction, which are common in Physics Laboratories in
Academia and Industry. This course focuses on solving problems, which occur in experimental
measurements and offers basics of data acquisition, data analysis, data storage, and professional
data presentation.
Instructor: Jan Opyrchal office: 410 Tiernan [email protected] tel: (973) 596-3683
Office hours: Monday 3.00 PM - 4.00 PM Wednesday 3.00 PM - 4.00 PM
Andrei Sirenko office: 423E Tiernan [email protected] tel: (973) 596-5342

• Goals
• Materials
• Textbooks
• Outline of the course
• Grading
• Rules
• Lab Reports
• Class Calendar
• List of Experiments
• General References
• Error Analysis and Reporting
• Useful Links

Goals:

• Learn about physical phenomena by performing quantitative measurements

• Gain experience with techniques and instrumentation used in modern physics
laboratories in Academia and Industry
• Gain experience in solving problems, which occur in experimental measurements
• Learn basics of data acquisition, data analysis, data storage, and data presentation

Materials:

• for this course you will need a Lab Notebook with numbered pages

Recommended textbooks:

• For students taking 450, it is strongly recommended that you obtain a copy of J. Schall, "Style for Students:
Effective Writing in Science and Engineering".
• Optional: D. W. Preston and E. R. Dietz, "The Art of Experimental Physics", (John Wiley and Sons, New York,
1991)
• An excellent book is by W. Strunk and E. B. White, "The Elements of Style", (MacMillan, New York, 1979).
• Also consult the Physical Review Style and Notation Guide at http://publish.aps.org/STYLE/
a copy is available in the labs.
Outline of the course:

• Students should work in pairs (if possible) and divide the work between them evenly. While the data will be
shared, each student will write his/her own lab report. A goal of this course is to help students enhance their
ability to solve experimental problems. You should try to work out problems for yourself, but the lab instructor
and teaching assistant will be glad to make suggestions when necessary.

• Students should show up in the lab during the period assigned to them and expect to spend the full three
hours working on the experiment. Students who complete the course requirement before the end of the
semester are encouraged to work on additional experiments for extra credit, but only during their regular lab
hours. Exceptions should be discussed with staff.

• Each student must attend the lab at the beginning of each period; report to the staff if you will be leaving to do
library or computer work on that day. Occasionally there may be short lectures on computers, instrumentation,
experimental techniques, etc. at the beginning of the lab class.
The attendence is mandatory. You agree that three or more absences will be equivalent to final grade F.

• A lab notebook is required for each group of students. You should record everything about your experiment in
the lab notebook. When starting the experiment you should write down a description of the experiment and
appropriate references, plus any notes you take from references, etc. Include sample calculations and detailed
sketches of experimental apparatus. Note relevant settings on instruments (e.g. amplifier gain, etc.).
All data should be recorded directly into the lab book. Do not use scraps of paper for recording data. If the data
are acquired using a computer, then a hard copy of the data should be pasted into the lab notebook. Staff will
be checking your book periodically and at the end of the course.

• Each team will do three experiments (see list of experiments). There will be a presentation of the one of the
experiment at the end of the semester (see the course timetable).

• Your lab reports must be submitted on moodle.njit.edu before a deadline.

The experiments to be graded by the instructor.

Grading:

Your final grade will be based on the total points obtained using the following schemes. Maximum values are
shown in this Table. Late lab reports will be severely penalized. Careful experimental technique and Physical-
Review-quality lab reports are necessary for a good grade.

450 Phys

Lab notebook (one per group) 10

Experimental Results 103=30

Experimental Report 153=45

Presentation 15
Late lab reports will be severely penalized. Careful experimental technique and Physical-Review-quality lab
reports are necessary for a good grade.
Rules:

• There will be no food, chewing gum, or beverages allowed in the Lab.

• If equipment seems to be malfunctioning, see the lab instructor or teaching assistant.
You are not permitted to repair electrical equipment yourself.
• If you have to move the equipment, make sure it is unplugged.
• Lab manuals and equipment manuals may be signed-out for copying, but must be returned immediately. Ask
the staff for instrument manuals.
• Damaged or lost manuals should be reported to the staff for replacement.
• If you break something, report it to the lab instructor immediately so that it may be fixed or replaced. Do not
try to fix it yourself without reporting it. If you break equipment while doing something less than brilliant, do not
be embarrassed to report it. You will not lose points if you break something, but you will be in big trouble if you
do not report it. Reporting problems so that they can be corrected will gain you psychological points with
the staff.
• Clean up after your lab session; leave the apparatus and work area in good condition for the next group.
• Return tools, support stands, rods, brackets, etc. to proper place. If you don't know the proper place, ask.
• When you need a tool from a set (e.g. set of wrenches), take the whole set, then return it whole. It is easier to
locate a whole set than one missing piece.
• Do not use sticky tape, glue, aluminum foil, etc. in experiments; it never works. Use a proper, professional-
level method; ask the lab instructor if you want to find the proper method.
• One can do the experiments only well prepared. Instructor reserves the right to check your knowledge about
theory and experimental procedures.

Lab Reports:

• The report should be typed double-spaced (12 point font), and should be about 6 - 10 pages long (excluding
figures).
• While your experimental results may not be publishable, your report should be of publishable quality.
• Writing style should follow that outlined in "Style for students (and Others)" by J. Schall, or the American
Physical Society (APS) standard outlined in

http://www.aip.org/pubservs/style/4thed/toc.html
and/or
Reviews of Modern Physics Style Guide

(for those who prefer LaTeX, templates can be downloaded from the Physical Reviews and Physical
Reviews Letters Web-pages; any paper from these journals can be used as an example). The reports
should be written in decent English, with full sentences everywhere. Although you are not writing a
literary essay, you are not writing a recipe either. Be wary of typos (they will be penalized increasingly
harshly as the term progresses).
The Lab Report should include the following sections:

1. Title page with

• Title of experiment
• Author name
• Date submitted
2. Abstract
with a short summary of the main results. It should be a self-contained paragraph, which interprets the
findings and describes their significance. The length is about 5-10 lines.
3. Introduction
2 or 3 paragraphs with description of the point of the experiment, historical overview, and a few
references to recent scientific papers on the related subject. References can be obtained by literature
search at http://www.library.njit.edu/
4. Theory
This should describe the theory and other background information relevant to your experiment,
including all relevant equations and derivations where necessary.
5. Experimental procedure
This section should by a general description of the method you have followed, and should be complete
and relatively detailed. It may include schematics of the experimental setup. However, it should not be
an excruciating list of every small adjustment you made. This section can be a summary of the
procedures described in the various manuals you will be consulting, but it should not be a literal
transcription! Just for future reference for this lab, put detailed procedures in an appendix to your paper.
6. Experimental results
In this section, results are reported in Tables and Figures, and the data and error analyses you have
done are described. Note that Figures and Tables need to be numbered, to have captions, and to be
introduced in the text (e.g. "In Figure 4 and Table 2 the measured voltage as a function of applied
external magnetic field is presented.''). Data in Figures and Tables should not duplicate each other.
7. Discussion
This is where you bring it all together. You can restate your salient final results. You can comment on
sources of error, difficulties encountered, and suggest ways to improve the measurements in the future.
8. Conclusions
should not repeat the Abstract
9. References
follow the APS style when citing references

Please proofread your reports thoroughly and check your calculations carefully before handing them in. Where
appropriate (but only where appropriate), perform fits to your data and report the fit parameters with errors. Be
as quantitative as possible in your analysis and discussion. Please read what you write and be advised that the
following will result in lost points: (out of 100 points maximum)

• Not following Lab Report requirements (listed above) -10 for lack of any section
• Typographical errors -1 each
• Figures or tables without captions -1 each
• Plots or tables without error bars -1 each
• Misreported numbers of significant figures in any x±dx (see -1 each
Error Reporting)
• Miscalculated errors -1 each
• Missing or faulty units -1 each
• Undefined parameters used in equations -1 each
• Egregiously bad English writing -10
• Reports handed in late will be severely penalized -5 for each day
Copy from any source not indicated in the report is considered a plagiarism.
 Students are to present their own work and results - not the borrowed ones. The grade is for student
work only - not for any copy.

Class Calendar:

Experiments and Class Organization:

Teams Teams Teams

1st 2nd 3rd
experiment experiment experiment Experiment
Start on Start on Start on
~Jan 23th ~Feb 20th ~March 20nd

Cavendish Experiment Basement B11 or B4

Muon Lifetime OPSE Lab

Quantum Analog Well

Quantum Analog Atom OPSE Lab

FT-IR experiments Basement B4

Fourier analysis OPSE Lab

Magnetic Susceptibility OPSE Lab

Photoelectric Effect OPSE Lab

Hall Effect OPSE Lab

Error Reporting

General References:

• D. W. Preston and E. R. Dietz, "The Art of Experimental Physics", (John Wiley and Sons, New York, 1991)
• P. Horowitz and W. Hill, "The Art of Electronics", (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1984)
• W. H. Press, B. P. Flannery, S. A. Teukolsky and W. T. Vetterling, "Numerical Recipes.The Art of Scientific
Computing", (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1992)
• A.C. Melissinos, "Experiments in Modern Physics", (Academic, New York, 1966)
• R. A. Dunlap, "Experimental Physics. Modern Methods" (New York 1988)
• J. Schall, "Style for Students: Effective Writing in Science and Engineering", (Burgess, Edina, MN, 1995)
• W. Strunk and E. B. White, "The Elements of Style", (MacMillan, New York, 1979)
• R. C. Richardson and E. N. Smith, "Experimental Techniques in Condensed Matter Physics at Low
Temperatures", (Addison-Wesley, New York, 1988)

Useful Links
NIST: Fundamental Physical Constants
Dictionary of Units
NIST: Uncertainty of Measurement Results
Unit Converter
Periodic Table
X-ray Diffraction Calculator
http://www.metric-conversions.org/

This page was created by Andrei Sirenko, NJIT, 2005

help of C. Denker, J. Federici, D. Gary, and G. Thomas is appreciated