Facilities and Equipment

Major facilities and equipment used for student/faculty
research and teaching at Wittenberg:

- A 400,000 Volt Cockcroft-Walton positive ion accelerator, a
basic tool for studies in nuclear and atomic physics and materials
studies. Auxiliary equipment includes a scattering chamber, detectors,
amplifiers, power supplies, and radiation monitoring apparatus for
personal safety.
- Elgar Weaver Observatory, home of a newly refurbished
10-inch refracting telescope that is equipped with a CCD camera and
spectrometer for obtaining images and spectra of astronomical objects.
- A laboratory for research into electromagnetic wave
propagation and scattering. High-speed data acquisition is performed
using a National Instruments PXI development system with real-time
embedded controller and dual-channel 100-Msample/sec analog to digital
converter. A 16-bit 40-MS/sec arbitrary function generator allows
generation of novel waveforms for applications such as radio frequency
virtual-instrument development and radar investigations. Real-time and
off-line data processing is conducted using both LabView and MATLAB.
- A laboratory for investigation of phenomena at the
interface between nuclear and atomic physics. Work in this lab is
carried out with a variety of equipment including diode lasers and
optics, high vacuum equipment, and particle and optical detectors.
- A laboratory for characterizing the electronic properties of both
organic and inorganic semiconductor devices. This laboratory includes
equipment for making very low current measurements, very low noise capacitance
measurements, and automated current-voltage measurements. It also contains
equipment for designing, building and testing custom electronic
instrumentation.
- A scanning electron microscope with x-ray analysis
capability, for imaging and characterizing the elemental composition of
small objects.
- X-ray diffraction apparatus, for investigating the atomic
and molecular structure of materials.
- A 3-m optical spectrometer with gratings of 5900 grooves/cm
and 11800 grooves/cm for spectral analysis from the near-ultraviolet to
the near-infrared.
- A laboratory with a variety of computer-interfaced
instrumentation (including a high-speed video camera capable of
10,000 frames per second). The instrumentation in this lab is used for
student projects and research as well as teaching introductory physics.
In addition, there are several other laboratories for studying
an extensive range of physical phenomena. These include an optics
laboratory equipped with a Michelson interferometer, grating
monochromator, lasers, and auxiliary equipment, and an electronics
laboratory equipped with digital oscilloscopes and function generators.