Advanced Physics Laboratory Reports
Physics 5700 Advanced Physics Laboratory PRL-style reports from three long-term experiments throughout a semester. This includes: 2-Slit Interference in the Quantum Limit, Boltzmann Constant Measurement via Johnson Noise, and Visible Spectroscopy experiments.
Physics 5700 (Advanced Physics Laboratory) serves as the capstone experimental experience for senior Physics and Engineering students at Ohio State. Unlike earlier labs that focus on verifying known laws with “cookie-cutter” setups, 5700 pushes us into the realm of professional scientific inquiry. The course is built around multi-week “Long Experiments” that require not just technical execution, but rigorous data analysis, uncertainty propagation, and professional communication.
The ultimate goal is to move beyond “getting the right answer” and instead focus on quantifying exactly how well we know that answer. This meant mastering the Physical Review Letters (PRL) style of reporting—learning to be concise, active in voice, and visually precise with data representation. It’s a course that demands high-level teamwork in the lab and total independence in the analytical “write-up” phase.
Experiment 1: 2-Slit Quantum Limit
This experiment explores the fundamental wave-particle duality of light. By reducing the light source intensity to the “quantum limit”, where only a single photon exists in the apparatus at any given time, we observed the gradual buildup of an interference pattern. This confirms that individual photons exhibit wave-like behavior and “interfere with themselves” rather than behaving as classical particles.
Experiment 2: Johnson Noise \(k_{\rm B}\)
In this experiment, we estimated the Boltzmann constant (\(k_{\rm B}\)) by measuring the thermal agitation of electrons, known as Johnson noise, within a resistor. By analyzing the root mean square (RMS) voltage across various resistances, frequencies, and temperatures, we linked macroscopic electrical noise to the microscopic thermal energy of the system.
Experiment 3: Visible Spectroscopy
Utilizing a visible light spectrometer spectrometer, we analyzed the discrete wavelengths of light emitted by excited atoms. From this, we were able to calibrate and align a spectrometer, calculation spectra of known gases, analyze spectrometer resolution and pixel-to-wavelength conversions, and ultimately identify an unknown gas sample, qualitatively and quantitatively.
