TUCSON, Ariz., Oct. 29 -- Spectra-Physics Lasers, a division of Newport Corp., has donated laboratory equipment worth $1.6 million to the University of Arizona's Optical Sciences Center, including optical tables, microscopes, lasers, wire bonders, chillers, data acquisition units, fiber couplers and burn-in systems. Spectra-Physics, based in Mountain View, Calif., specializes in laser and photonics technology for industrial applications; it has diode laser manufacturing operations in Tucson. Russell Chipman, who teaches an advanced optics laboratory for undergraduate seniors, said several pieces of equipment will be used in the center’s Roland V. Shack Senior Teaching Laboratory. In addition to his work with OSC students in the teaching laboratory, Professor Chipman maintains a polarimetric research laboratory, which will receive an optical table and a data acquisition unit. He said, "This will let us expand our capabilities to build a polarization scatterometer, an instrument that studies how laser-illuminated scenes have their polarization changed during light scattering in laser imaging." The Optical Sciences Center is in the process of building a large research and teaching addition to its facility on the University of Arizona campus, and several items have been earmarked for distribution among the addition’s new laboratories and cleanrooms.The addition is expected to be completed in 2005. For more information, visit: www.optics.arizona.edu