502002 - PHYSICS LABORATORY III

courses

ID:

502002

Duration (hours):

96

CFU:

SSD:

FISICA SPERIMENTALE

Year:

2025

Date/time interval

Annualità Singola (22/09/2025 - 05/06/2026)

Course Objectives

(M1) Learning of the physical working principles of the main microelectronics and optoelectronics devices.
The target of the course is to get the student acquainted with some common electronic and optoelectronic devices used in research laboratories.
This knowledge will be applied to simple experiments to verify some basic optical principles. The student should become able to independently manage a laboratory task.
(M2) To introduce the students to the experimental methods of physics research, guiding them in performing some basic experiences in the fields of physics of matter, nuclear physics, and biomedical physics.

Course Prerequisites

Note: in the following, we refer to the contents of the first and second semesters as M1 and M2, respectively.
(M1) Basic notions of electromagnetism are requested, particularly concerning the electronic transport in conducting materials. Some experiments will recover optics concepts (diffraction, polarization, and absorption of light) studied in the Electromagnetism II course. Some quantum physics concepts will be taken from the parallel Quantum mechanics course.
(M2) Fundamental concepts of the different interactions between electromagnetic radiation in its broad spectrum and matter.

Teaching Methods

(M1) frontal lessons, aimed at explaining the physics principles on the basis of the device working, will introduce the laboratory activities. These will consist in a series of proposed experiments performed independently by the students. The proposal is to make the students familiar with the practice and the problems of the laboratory work.
(M2) For each research topic, there will be an introductory lecture and two/three sessions of guided experiences to be carried out in the laboratory.

Assessment Methods

(M1) Written and Oral examination.
The examination is based on a written report on the performed experiments and on a multiple-choice test aimed at evaluating the acquisition and comprehension of the mere practical activities.
The oral test is devoted to verifying the understanding of the physics of devices.
(M2) Delivery and discussion of a report (with results and data analysis) including all the experiments performed; in addition, oral test aimed at ascertaining the acquisition of the theoretical and practical concepts addressed in the course.
The final evaluation, on a scale from 0 to 30, will consider the report precision and completeness, test results, and the physical consistency of the oral answers.

Texts

(M1) Specific notes regarding the treated topics will be uploaded on Kiro platform. As for the semiconductor-based devices a short booklet will be made available. Textbook used in the course of Electromagnetism will be used as a reference for the optics experiments.
(M2) Material and references to bibliography provided by the teachers.

(M1) Generalities about semiconductors. Fundamentals of electronic devices and their circuital properties: Junction diodes, LEDs and solar cells. Elements of optics and optoelectronic and photonic applications.
The course will be developed with practical exercises on simple circuits and basic optical configurations including polarization and diffraction.
(M2) The student will be able to understand and manage basic experiments in the following research areas: (a) optical / transport spectroscopy and its applications in solid state physics; (b) nuclear physics detectors and their applications to cosmic rays; (c) gamma spectrometry and its applications in the medical field.

Course Language

Italian

More information

The course is extended over the whole academic year.
The winter semester will be devoted to simple optical experiments and the use of semiconductor-based devices (6 CFU).
During the spring semester more research- oriented experiments will be proposed, dealing with solid-state physics, nuclear physics, and biophysics (3CFU).
To organize the laboratory space, the students will be assigned to groups corresponding to the scheduled turnover of the different experiments.