General Properties of Diodes
The purpose of this experiment is to investigate the characteristic curves (I vs. V) of various types of diodes and to determine their “turn-on” voltages.
RC Circuit
The manner by which the voltage on a capacitor decreases is studied. The half-life for the decay is measured directly and also calculated using the capacitive...
Kirchhoff’s Circuit Laws
Kirchhoff’s Junction Rule and Loop Rule form the basis of all circuit analysis. Here we verify the laws for a resistive circuit.
Series and Parallel Circuits
Series/Parallel circuits are reduced to an equivalent resistance and that resistance is verified by measuring the total current and total voltage. In a...
Electric Field Mapping
The purpose of this qualitative activity is to introduce the students to the concept of a field and to make the idea of the electric field more concrete...
Electrostatic Charges
Compare and contrast the results of three different methods of charging: (1) rubbing two objects together; (2) touching a charged object to a neutral one...
Interference and Diffraction of Light
The distances between the central maximum and the diffraction minima for a single slit are measured...
Brewster's Angle
In this experiment you will explore how the intensity and polarization of light changes when reflected from the surface of a transparent medium, and then...
Polarization
Laser light is passed through two polarizers. As the second polarizer (the analyzer) is rotated by hand, the relative light intensity is recorded as a...
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