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The
laboratory is as important a component to training in physics as the
classroom, and thus the Department puts forth a solid and continuous
effort to build and maintain its excellent laboratory program.
Graduate schools and potential employers pay close attention to what
can be said of a student's ability to solve experimental problems
and such competence develops with practical experience. Take full
advantage of this fine opportunity - don't be afraid to ask
questions, to repeat assignments, and to take every occasion
possible to meet with faculty and with other students to discuss
laboratory work.
 In addition to
its annual equipment budget, the Physics Department has received
special grants from the National Science Foundation,
the W. M. Keck Foundation, the Pew Charitable Trusts, the
Commonwealth of
Pennsylvania, and Gettysburg College for the purchase of
laboratory equipment. Every laboratory course in our Department has
benefited, so that by graduation, a physics major who takes
advantage of all the laboratory courses offered will truly have had
valuable and marketable experiences with quality research equipment
in several different fields.
The following
are some of the Department's major items of equipment, listed
according to the year when students normally begin using them.
Experimental equipment is upgraded each year and the Department also
makes reserve funds available for purchase of items necessary for
independent research.
First Year:
oscilloscopes, function generators, digital multimeters, air
tracks, scalers (for radioactivity experiments), microcomputers
(for a multitude of uses, including laboratory control and
measuring devices, analysis and graphical tools, access to the
College's mainframe computers, as well as other computer
resources), He-Ne lasers, optical benches;
 Sophomore: x-ray source and
spectrometer, interferometers, neutron source, grating
spectrometers, multichannel analyzers, microcomputer interfacing
equipment, digital electronics;
Junior/Senior: microprocessor controlled multichannel
analyzers, electron spin, resonance spectrometer, 12" research
electromagnet, Mössbauer drives, fast coincidence counter, x-ray
diffraction apparatus, solid- state particle detectors, Fourier
transform spectrometer, to name a few.
The Physics
Department also has equipment not associated with any particular
course, but available for student use. This includes a research
quality 16" Cassegrain telescope with a computer controlled drive, a
UBV photometer, and a research grade CCD camera; an optical
isolation table, a tunable scanning narrow band ring dye laser, a
100 liter vacuum pump system, a 25 milliwatt He-Ne laser, two 5 watt
argon ion lasers, a nitrogen dye laser, fiber optics apparatus,
assorted holography apparatus, a spectrum analyzer, infrared
sensitive measuring television camera, and lots of assorted
electronic measuring and computer equipment.
For additional information
on the kinds of research Gettysburg College students are doing and
activities they can participate in, take a look at our websites for
student-faculty research.
"Basic research is what I am doing when I don't
know what I am doing"
- Werner
von Braun
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Guide to Physics
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