K-12 Outreach Program

Teen explorers visit lab to learn about nano-optics

Looking at light a little differently captured students’ interest at the final Exploring post meeting of the school year at VU’s School of Engineering.

About 20 high schoolers, several with a parent in tow, watched while Professor Sharon Weiss used a number of demonstrations to stimulate discussion about nano-optics – engineering with light.

Weiss, assistant professor of electrical engineering and physics, performs research on nanotechnology, especially as related to biosensors and the optical properties of materials. 

The teens and parents each received a ‘rainbow peephole,’ paper-frame circle that holds a special patterned piece of plastic. When held toward a white light source, the rainbow peephole separates ‘white’ light into all the colors of the spectrum – a lesson about diffraction gratings. Next, she used a fiber optic cable to demonstrate how light bends along with the shape of the thin, flexible cable and carries ‘information’ along the spectrum that allows global telecommunications.  

The group walked from Stevenson Hall to Weiss’ lab in Featheringill Hall to learn more about her research.  Her focus is how light interacts with silicon. Porous silicon wafers with billions of tiny nanometer-sized holes (1,000 times smaller than the thickness of a human hair) are made in her photonic crystals lab. Evaluating how light interacts with the porous silicon makes it possible to detect something a small as DNA sequences.

Nearly every time Weiss posed a question, someone answered. A few times a parent nudged his or her teen, and occasionally a parent jumped in to answer the question.

“We had parents at each meeting we’ve held on campus,” said Professor Kane Jennings (ChE), one of the leaders of VUSE’s Exploring post, which is sponsored by the Middle Tennessee Council of the Boy Scouts of America. Professor Joel Barnett (ME) was this year’s co-leader. Jennings and Barnettwill likely lead another Exploring post at the School of Engineering beginning this fall.

“The response to our meetings has been very good,” said Jennings. The group met on campus five times during the academic year; each meeting used to ‘explore’ another facet of engineering.

This is not the Boy Scout Explorer rank of yesteryear. ‘Exploring’ is a worksite-based program. It is part of Learning for Life's career education program for young men and women who are 14 (and have completed the eighth grade) through 20 years old.

Volunteers from local businesses and organizations initiate a specific Explorer Post by matching the volunteers’ expertise to the interests of area youth. Exploring programs are based on five areas of emphasis: career opportunities, life skills, citizenship, character education, and leadership experience.