If you think keeping up with technology as a user is hard, imagine what it’s like keeping up with the people who develop it. Trained physicists from universities and companies around the country travelled to Buffalo State to do just that in early August. That’s when the Physics Department presented a three-day workshop featuring “advanced laboratory immersions.”

“This is a great opportunity to share knowledge with novice faculty about teaching advanced physics labs—knowledge we’ve gained from many years of experience,” said Michael De Marco, professor and chair of the Physics Department. De Marco also served as one of four mentors at the Buffalo State workshop.

The other three mentor physicists were Jonathan Reichert, professor emeritus from the University at Buffalo and CEO of TeachSpin; David Van Baak, professor of physics at Calvin College in Michigan; and Ram Rai, assistant professor of physics at Buffalo State. Twelve physicists from different colleges, universities, and industry attended as workshop participants.

Rai said, “As devices become smaller, the application of principles discovered by physicists becomes part of our daily lives more and more.” Rai served as mentor to Cheryl Hanzlik, physics category brand manager for VWR Education, which sells experiment kits to elementary and secondary schools.

“If we want students to become scientists,” Hanzlik said, “they have to be comfortable doing hands-on work.” Hanzlik, who holds a Ph.D. in physics, attended the program to get experience using a SQUID – a device that demonstrates high-temperature superconductivity.

Superconductivity is the ability of certain materials to transmit electricity without losing any. Most superconductive materials exhibit this capability only at temperatures approaching absolute zero, almost 500 degrees below zero on the Fahrenheit scale. So-called high-temperature superconductivity takes place at temperatures that are high only by comparison. For instance, Rai and Hanzlik were using liquid nitrogen, which boils at -196 degrees C (-321 degrees F).

Rai poured the liquid nitrogen into a container and immersed a material—YBCO (yttrium barium copper oxide)—into the boiling nitrogen. Then, using lab tweezers, he placed a small magnet on it. As the YBCO cooled down to –196 degrees C, its superconductive properties revealed themselves and the magnet levitated above the material.

In another workshop, Declan Mulhall, associate professor of physics at the University of Scranton, was studying the assembly and use of a Laser Interferometer, a complex device used to study optics, the physics of light.

“Optics are used in everything,” said Mulhall. “CDs, your Blu-Ray player, fiber optic cable—the Internet depends on it.” Mulhall adjusted mirrors and lenses, redirecting the laser beam from one point to another and back on itself. “We can use this instrument to teach quantum mechanics to our student.”

The workshop was supported by a $50,000 grant from the National Foundation of Science. In cooperation with the American Association of Physics Teachers and the Advanced Laboratory Physics Association (ALPhA), the funds support laboratory immersion programs around the country.

The participants at Buffalo State’s ALPhA workshop came from the nearby Rochester Institute of Technology and from as far away as the University of Hawaii. Kurt Wick, a senior scientist at the University of Minnesota, said, “This program is useful because here you can ask people why you use it a certain way, and you find out what doesn’t work. If you just read a paper, you only learn one possible application.”

Drew Alton, a professor at Augustana College in Sioux Falls, said that using the equipment and conducting an experiment with an experienced mentor gave him a way to “open the hood and understand NMR better.” NMR is a research technique widely used in chemistry to understand the property of organic molecules.

Perhaps the strongest energy in the room came from the participants and mentors, who were enjoying the opportunity and the challenge of learning more about ways to do the work they love. Linda Barton, associate professor of physics at RIT said, “We are so grateful to Buffalo State for hosting this program for us.”