Published in the Proceedings of the IEEE Vol. 88, No. 1, pp. 41-54, January 2000 2000 IEEE 1 Photonics laboratory experiments for modern technology based courses Walter Johnstone, Brian Culshaw, *Douglas Walsh, *David Moodie and *Iain Mauchline EEE Dept., University of Strathclyde, 204 George St., Glasgow, G1 1XW Scotland, UK *OptoSci Ltd, 141 St. James Rd., Glasgow, G4 0LT, Scotland, UK ABSTRACT The modern photonics and optical communications industries have placed ever increasing demands on the supply of skilled graduates who are competent in the design, installation and operation of photonics systems. In response to this demand, we have developed a range of photonics laboratory teaching experiments to support accompanying lecture courses by underpinning fundamental principles with hands-on experimental experience. These systems enable students and trainees to experimentally investigate the basic principles, characteristics and design of optical waveguides, optical communications systems, optical amplifiers and fault location techniques for optical networks, with additional scope for open ended investigative work. The experiments have been designed with the constraints of academic teaching budgets firmly in mind whilst still allowing the investigation of real technical issues such as mode spectrum analysis in optical waveguides and optical pulse dispersion / bit rate limits in fibre communications systems. The educational and overall system design philosophies, hardware and experiments are reported in this paper. Keywords: educational experiments, photonics education, fibre-optics education, optical communications, optical amplifiers, EDFA.