PHYS 4430, Advanced Laboratory at the University of Colorado Boulder, is designed to expose you to and equip you with some of the essential skills that an experimentalist should have. It is also designed to expose you to a variety of experimental physics topics, and to provide a sense of independent research.
In the first part of the course you will cover several guided experiments of your choosing. A short oral presentation or written report follows the completion of each of these guided experiments. About mid-semester, students individually or in small teams begin to conceive of independent experimental research projects covering any field relevant to experimental physics. The instructors make every effort to support original and creative projects. At the end of the semester, the student submits a written project report and also gives an oral presentation.
Note: This web site is intended to be used as supplement to your Canvas course page, and not used by itself.
Lectures: Lectures are on Tuesday and Thursday each week in the classroom of Duane G214. See below for the lecture times for each section. Lectures will not be recorded but the slides used will be posted in Canvas.
Lab Sessions: Each section has one three-hour instructional lab session per week, supervised by your lab instructor. You must attend the weekly scheduled lab session that corresponds with the section you are enrolled in.
Not all sections listed above are offered each semester. Be sure to visit classes.colorado.edu for the currently offered sections.
There is no required textbook for this course. The following textbooks are available in the lab for your reference (please do not remove them from the lab).
Lab equipment may fail, malfunction, or become damaged throughout the semester. If this happens, please report it to the lab technical staff by completing this form and report it to you instructor. The lab issue form allows you to also submit attachments which helps the technical staff identify and troubleshoot the issue.
As part of your enrollment in this course, we offer to cover the costs associated with taking the Machining Course in the Physics Trades Teaching Lab. While this is not a requirement, we strongly encourage all students to participate in this opportunity. More details will be provided later in the semester.