EE 422 – Optical Engineering Laboratory

Designation:

Senior/Grad-level technical elective for Electrical Engineering students

Catalog Data:

Hands-on experience covering areas of optical transforms, electro-optics devices, signal processing, fiber optics transmission, and holography. Prerequisite: EE 320.

Prerequisites by topic:

1. Understanding of basic properties of lights, especially coherent light.
2. Understanding and the ability to use the correlation, convolution and Fourier transformation in the solution of optical system.
3. Proficiency in the use of basic optical components (lens, laser, camera, fiber, digital oscilloscope, function generator)

Course Objectives:

This course is a laboratory-oriented technical elective course. Through lecture, laboratory, and out-of-assignments, students are provided learning experiences that enable them to:

1. Analyze and design simple optical processor, particularly with hands-on exposure to lenses, lasers, diffraction, holograms, optics fibers, and other optical devices.
2. Develop technical writing skills important for effective communication.
3. Acquire teamwork skills for working effective in groups

Topics:

1. Basic photography and dark room processing (1 class)
2. Basic optical laboratory, beam collimating and optical imaging (1 class)
3. Coherent and incoherent illumination (1 class)
4. Liquid crystal display spatial light modulator (1 class)
5. Optical scanning correlation and convolution (1 class)
6. Diffraction and optical Fourier transform (1 class)
7. Optical Fourier transform and filtering (1 class)
8. Fresnel hologram (1 class)
9. Rainbow hologram (1 class)
10. Optical fiber coupling (1 class)
11. Optical fiber sensing (1 class)
12. White-light image processing (1 class)

Class/laboratory schedule:

One 75-minute lecture and one 2-hour laboratory per week.

Computer Usage:

1. All the experiments require the use of word processing, excel analysis and graphics software for their formal laboratory report writing.
2. PC is used to control the optical processing system in the laboratory

Laboratory projects and assignments:

1. A total of twelve experiments are required for the laboratory part of this course. Technical writing skills, maintaining a laboratory notebook, working in teams, and development of good optical system setup are emphasized during the laboratory meeting.
2. Laboratory experiments involve the use of basic optical components (coherent light source, incoherent light source, collimating lens, image lens, digital camera, waveguide directional coupler, fiber, photodetector, power meter) as well as some other test equipment (digital oscilloscope, function generator).

Contribution to meeting the professional component:

This course provides the theory on principles of optical components and devices and hands-on experiments in the area of optical system design. It’s a prerequisite to the high-level electro-optics courses in EE department, such as EE 522, EE 520. The graduates may look for co-op, internship or permanent jobs in industries that would benefit from their experience. Topics pertaining the health and safety are considered in the development of the optical processor design in the laboratory.

Relationship to program outcome:

1. Graduates will interact with industry both within and outside of a classroom setting. [Ref: Outcome O.4.1]
2. Graduate will have attained computer proficiency. [Ref: Outcome O.1.3]
3. Graduates will develop an appreciation of higher-level research. [Ref: Outcome O.4.2]
4. Graduates will have teamwork skills. [Ref: Outcome O.5.1]
5. Graduates will possess written communication skills. [Ref: Outcome O.5.2]