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Engineering Physics :
Undergraduates Contribute to Research In Photonics, Nanotechnology, Other Areas

Professor Heather Lewandowski works with engineering physics undergraduate Dan Lobser, seen here adjusting a pulsed dye laser.

Undergraduate students in the Engineering Physics Program play a big part in physics research at CU. Besides traditional coursework in core areas of physics like quantum mechanics, thermodynamics, and mechanics, the engineering physics curriculum includes laboratory courses that focus on building research skills.

"We encourage our majors to get involved in research projects no later than the end of their second year. We have undergraduate students working in all of our research groups, right alongside graduate students and post-docs. The opportunity to work on cutting-edge research is what sets our program apart," says Program Director John Price. The Engineering Physics Program offers both the traditional four-year bachelor's degree and a new five-year bachelor's/master's degree.

CU physics has grown rapidly in recent years, following several major awards to its faculty, including the 2002 Nobel Prize awarded to Professors Carl Wieman and Eric Cornell, the 2005 Nobel Prize awarded to CU/JILA physicist John Hall, and MacArthur "genius" awards to Professors Deborah Jin and Margaret Murnane. Much of the growth has been in applied and interdisciplinary research areas, like photonics and nanotechnology that have many applications to engineering.

Professor Kyle McElroy, who arrived at CU in 2006, is constructing a state-of-the-art low temperature scanning probe microscopy laboratory, aimed at studying surfaces of oxide superconductors and other exotic electronic materials. Professor Heather Lewandowski joined the department in 2005. Her lab is devoted to cooling free-radical molecular vapors to very low temperatures and studying cold molecule collisions, a subject that is crucial for understanding the chemistry of the Earth's atmosphere.

Major physics research centers at CU include the Engineering Research Center for Extreme Ultraviolet Science and Technology, the Ferroelectric Liquid Crystal Materials Research Center, the Center for Integrated Plasma Studies, and the Center for Imaging the Earth's Interior. CU physics also hosts the annual Boulder Summer School in Condensed Matter and Materials Physics, which is supported by the National Science Foundation.

For more information visit: www.colorado.edu/physics