Journal of Undergraduate Research

Cody Petrie and Steven Turley, Department of Physics and Astronomy Introduction: Reflection of extreme ultraviolet (EUV) light is made difficult by a number of factors. First, most materials have a large, imaginary part of the index of refraction for EUV light, causing absorption. As a result, our experiment is done under vacuum. Second, since the […]

Nils Otterstrom and Dallin Durfee, Department of Physics and Astronomy Introduction Physics laboratories all over the world depend on accurate wavelength meters to tune their lasers to desired optical frequencies. Our ion interferometry lab, for example, relies heavily on the precision of these instruments to laser cool beams of strontium ions and then split and […]

Steven Noyce and Robert Davis, Physics Introduction Resonant cantilevers, or small vibrating beams, are used to detect small concentrations of chemicals. As molecules or atoms of the substance to be sensed adhere to the vibrating beam, the resonant frequency changes as a result of the change in mass. These sensors are built on the microscale […]

Taylor Hugh Morgan and David Neilsen, Department of Physics and Astronomy   I. Introduction Our research is on the gravitational three-body problem where there are three star-like objects with the only acting force on the objects being gravity. Since the discovery of gravity, many physicists and mathematicians have looked for an analytic solution to the […]

Joshua Marx and Steve Turley, Department of Physics and Astronomy Extreme ultraviolet (XUV) light is light with wavelengths between one and 60 nanometers. The shorter wavelengths of light in this range are on the same order of magnitude as atomic dimensions. Currently, XUV optics have many uses and even more potential applications in a variety […]

Meredith Gold and Professor Gus Hart Introduction The purpose of this study was to expand upon a previous and successful unofficial study that I did in high school, testing the effectiveness of humor in instructional science writing. Despite the fact that various extenuating circumstances (including multiple cases of prolonged illness) hindered measurable data collection, the […]

John Gardiner and Jean-Francois Van Huele, Physics and Astronomy Introduction Entanglement is a quantum phenomenon that is important to many applications including quantum computing and cryptography. The way that a quantum system changes in time is encoded in a mathematical object called the Hamiltonian of the system. The goal of this project was to better […]

Ashlie Burton, and Dr. Lawrence Rees, Physics and Astronomy Introduction 2ft Prosthetics has been making below-the-knee prostheses for developing countries since 2010. While these feet have been helpful, improvements should be made to the design. One of the common complaints about the PVC foot was the amount of noise created during gait. The purpose of […]

Jason Kyle Anderson, Dr. David Allred, and Department of Physics and Astronomy Introduction: Traditional micro fabrication processes are confined to a small subset of possible materials due to limitations on etching. They are also confined to low aspect ratio fabrication due to limits in both etching process and stability of thicker film deposition processes. Carbon […]

Matea Trevino and Dr. Karine Chesnel, Department of Physics and Astronomy Introduction Magnetite (Fe3O4) nanoparticles have the unique ability of being superparamagnetic. When no field is applied to the nanoparticles, the nanoparticles’ assembly has a net magnetization of zero, meaning that the nanoparticles’ magnetic moments align in random positions leading to a net magnetization of […]