P.H. Bunton
Faculty Research

My area of research is in applying optical techniques to materials processing and physics. My students have been involved in supporting a NASA project in polymer processing headed by Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, AL. In this regard we have been part of a larger team of scientists and engineers working toward performing a polymer-processing experiment on the International Space Station (ISS).

We provide expertise in the area of spectroscopy. Specifically we have analyzed the fluorescence from a molecular probe during irradiation with ultraviolet light. As the viscosity (the thickness or “gooiness”) of the polymer increases, so does the amount of fluorescence or light emitted from the sample. We are attempting to correlate the amount of fluorescence to the viscosity for varying degrees of polymerization and temperatures. If successful, this technique may be used to monitor the viscosity of polymers for the ISS experiment. In conjunction with this effort, we are also observing the fluorescence from an interface between monomer and polymer with a digital camera. The polymer samples again contain a special molecule that fluoresces (glows) when irradiated with ultraviolet light. Images are taken and then converted to a matrix of numerical values (that’s all a digital image really is anyway, we just need a particular format!). The polymer glows brightly and the monomer hardly at all. As time passes the two interdiffuse. By using a sophisticated mathematics package called Mathcad, students are able to fit the expected shape of the interface to the actual data. From this the diffusion coefficient can be extracted. We are comparing this technique to different techniques being tried at the Center for Applied Optics in Hunstville, AL and at the University of Southern Mississippi (where the principle scientist on the experiment works).

Students have gained considerable experience in optics, spectroscopy, imagining, data collection, and computational analysis of the data. Undergraduate students have given talks at the National Conference on Undergraduate Research in Whitewater, Wisconsin and at a zone meeting of the Society of Physics Students. Two students are scheduled to give talks at the 2003 March meeting of the American Physical Society. Students have been coauthors on a paper presented at a meeting of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics as well as an upcoming talk at a meeting of the American Chemical Society. Two students have each recently spent a summer working at Marshall Space Flight Center thanks to NASA’s Undergraduate Student Researchers Program. Both plan to return to NASA this summer as well. Students have also performed paid research in the summer and even part-time during the school year here at William Jewell College.

In addition to the areas above I have an interest in image processing and holography. We have the capability for both optical and computational image processing. One senior student is performing a project wherein he makes a hologram with a known optical error in it. He then uses optical image processing to correct for the error – in this case an extra beam of light produced using the technique of in-line holography. He can then compare his optically processed results to his computations using two-dimensional Fourier transforms.

There are many exciting research and employment opportunities in the area of Optics. For more information see www.osa.org.