LabVIEW as an effective enhancement to an optoelectronics laboratory experiment

GPIB (General Purpose Interface Bus) is an essential tool in computer-controlled instrumentation. National Instruments' LabVIEW provides an effective alternative to conventional text based languages by utilizing a graphical programming environment to control GPIB instruments. From a pedagogical perspective, it offers an interesting new approach to programming, particularly for visual learners. An independent undergraduate summer learning experience culminated in the implementation of a LabVIEW application to enhance a laboratory experiment for an optoelectronics elective course, EE341 Optoelectronic Materials and Devices, offered in the Electrical Engineering Department at Bucknell University. This experiment focuses on properties of light emitting diodes (LEDs) and injection laser diodes (ILDs). An important characterization method for these devices uses power versus current (PI) data to compare and contrast the physical behavior of each device. The acquisition of LabVIEW and a laser diode controller with a GPIB interface facilitated the improvement of data collection. A senior electrical engineering student designed a LabVIEW interface for the experiment. Now EE341 students can perform more types of measurements and draw more interesting conclusions based on their data. Students can collect more data points, plot data in real time, compare plots of multiple devices, and observe hysterisis effects and temperature dependencies. With less lab time spent on manually collecting data, students can focus on the educational objectives of the experiment such as analyzing data.