Prof. Jacobs offers two courses in the second floor seminar room of the LLE complex on the U of R South Campus. Each spring semester he teaches either Optics 443: Optical Fabrication and Testing (even years), or ChE447: Liquid Crystals for Chemical Engineers (odd years). These elective 4 credit courses are open to graduate students in Optics, Chemical Engineering, Materials Science, and Optics/ChE seniors - all with permission of the instructor.

Recent announcements for these courses are given below:

Optics 443 / Mat. Science 471:
Optical Fabrication and Testing
Spring '06

Prerequisites: none; permission of instructor; 12 student maximum

Instructors: Lecture (S. D. Jacobs, LLE@ 5-4837);
Laboratory (A. Maltsev, COI@ 5-2313)

Time/Location: LLE East on the University's South Campus

Lecture- Tuesday and Thursday @ 1300-1415
in Seminar Room 2101 (2nd floor)

Laboratory- 1 three hour session per week per student,
Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday 9:00 am to 12:00 pm
in LLE Optical Fabrication Facility Room 1604 (1st floor)

Homework:   ~8 assignments related to recent technical literature
Papers:          one 10 page report on a subject selected w/ instructor
Exams:          2 hourly exams (end of Feb., early April), no final

Text: 500 pg. instructor's notes in a binder - required @ $30/copy

This course is designed to give a first-hand working knowledge of optical glasses, their properties, and the methods for specifying, manufacturing and testing high quality optical components. Lectures emphasize the optical and physical properties of glass, and how these influence the grinding and polishing process. Conventional fixed / loose abrasive grinding and pitch polishing are examined. New concepts for optical manufacturing are covered, including deterministic microgrinding with metal bonded diamond tools on computer automated machining platforms, the importance of chemistry in generating sub-nanometer roughness surfaces, and chemomechanical polishing with magnetic fluids (e.g., magnetorheological finishing). In a written paper, the student will conduct an in-depth review of a chosen topic, or document the results of a special research experiment. A short oral presentation will be required on the last day of class.

The laboratory portion of the course exposes the student to abrasive grits, slurries, pitch polishing and the vagarious nature of the conventional fabrication process, under the guidance of a master optician. Glass types and part shapes are assigned to illustrate the degree of difficulty required to achieve optical quality surfaces with hand and machine operations. Both convention optical polishing pitch and new synthetic pitch formulations are used.

In-process metrology is performed with a variety of instruments, including a PocketSurf III stylus profiler, Zygo New View white light interferometer microscopes, Zygo Mark IVxp and GPI laser interferometers, a Davidson interferometer, a spherometer, and a Nikon autocollimator. A glass-melting project allows students to mix, melt, cast and anneal a colored phosphate glass block. Internal stress of the block is characterized with a high precision birefringence mapper.

Optics 443: Table of Contents for the Class Notes

ChE 447 - Opt 392 / 492:

Time/Location: LLE East on the University's South Campus

Lecture- Tuesday and Thursday @ 1300-1415
in Seminar Room 2101 (2nd floor)

Homework: ~8 assignments based primarily on current research papers in the literature
Papers: one written research paper with an oral presentation at the end of the semester
Exams: two hourlies

Text: 200 pg instructor's notes in a binder - required @ $30/copy

This course introduces the materials, terminology, effects, and devices used in the field of liquid crystal optics. Passive and active optical devices based on liquid crystals will be covered. Chemical engineering students will be given enough introductory optics to understand the concepts and applications described in the course. [Optics students will be excused from the three lectures on basic optics.] Answers to the following questions will be explored:

• What is a liquid crystal polarizer?
• Why is it important that liquid crystals align over macroscopic areas?
• Are liquid crystals sensitive to temperature or not?
• Birefringence?
• How do privacy windows work? [The stalls in a NYC bathroom have them!]
• A cholesteric liquid crystal paint job on my car? How much?
• In-plane switching? beam deflectors? viewing angle? contrtast ratio?

Passive low molecular weight liquid crystal optics. Left: checkerboard lc waveplate; Right: wedged lc waveplate; Center: 200 mm diameter 1054 nm lc waveplate for the LLE OMEGA Laser; Background: encapsulated temperature sensitive smectic lc sheet

ChE 447: Table of Contents for the Class Notes