Past Programs
Physics with LEDs
Rockland Community College
Thursday, March 17, 2005
Registration deadline is Tuesday, March 15th
Presented by the Center for Nanoscale Systems Institute for Physics Teachers (CIPT) Cornell University, NY and Rockland Comunity College
Workshop Schedule:
| 2:30-3:00 p.m. | Registration andRefreshments |
| 3:00-3:10 p.m. | Welcome Intoriductions |
| 3:10-3:50 p.m. | Dr. Monica Plisch Lecture "Light Emitting Diodes" |
| 3:50-4:50 p.m. | Hands-on Activity: The Phantastic Photon |
| 4:50-5:50 p.m. | Hands-on Activity: Light Emitting Diodes |
| 5:50-6:00 p.m. | Evaluations and Closing |
Activities
- "Phantastic Photon " - Different colors of light are directly related to the energy and wavelength of the photons which compose that light. Investigate these relationships by shining colored light from super-bright LEDs onto fluorescent paint and glow-in-the-dark tape and observing the emitted light by eye and with a handheld spectrometer. Order the colors of light from highest to lowest energy and determine the role of light intensity in exciting the energy level transitions involved in fluorescence.
- "Light Emitting Diodes" (LED) -Using super-bight light-emitting diodes, investigate the conversion of electrical energy into light. Measuring and comparing the energy lost by each electron with the frequency of the emitted light for several LED colors allows you to determine Plank's constant, a fundamental number in quantum mechanics. Also, investigate other properties of LEDs and learn why they are increasingly used as indicators and light sources.
