A Laboratory Module on Radiometry, Photometry and Colorimetry for an Undergraduate Optics Course

The bachelor’s degree in Physics at Loyola University Chicago requires both an upper-division course in Optics as well as a companion Optics Laboratory course. Recently, the laboratory course has undergone dramatic changes. Traditional weekly laboratories have been replaced with three laboratory modules, where students focus on a single topic over several weeks after which the students submit a laboratory report written in the style of a journal article following American Institute of Physics style manual. With this method, students are able to gain a deeper understanding of the specific topic areas of radiometry, photometry and colorimetry, lens design and aberrations, and polarization and interference while using industry-standard equipment and simulation software. In particular, this work will provide the details of the laboratory module on radiometry, photometry and colorimetry where students use a photoradiometer and integrating sphere to characterize the optical properties of an LCD monitor, light bulb and a fiber optic light source calculating properties such as luminous flux, luminous intensity, luminance, CIE color coordinates, NTSC ratio, color temperature and luminous efficacy.