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The Physics Faculty at Harvey Mudd College are engaged in a
variety of original research activities in condensed matter
physics, optics, geophysics, astronomy, general
relativity, and string theory, all of which involve physics majors. Some of the
research groups are individual faculty members leading a
small team of undergraduates, and others are
interdisciplinary efforts involving several faculty members
and as many as 10 undergraduate researchers. All physics
majors conduct a senior research project, or participate in a
clinic research or development project, working with one or
more faculty members. Many of these result in publications in
peer-reviewed journals. A list of recent publications by
members of the HMC physics department is available here. |
 
Optical Coherence Microscopy (OCM) is an experimental technique which measures the interference fringes caused by light from a single source traveling the same distance along two different optical paths. The OCM gathers information from the inside of the sample by focusing the beam spot (waist) at an equal path length position that is below the surface tissue layer and recording the intensity of directly back-scattered light. This is essentially a measure of the cross-sectional scattering area within a particular volume element. Multiply-scattered light from out-of-focus planes within the sample is filtered out by the coherence gate of our Michelson Interferometer setup, preserving high spatial resolution even within the sample. The OCM Schematic on this page illustrates the setup of the instrument, including the two separate optical paths, one consisting of a reference mirror, the other of the sample to be imaged. See the OCM page for more information. courtesy of Richard Haskell |
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