A polarimeter is used to characterize a sample by measuring the rotation of polarized light when it interacts with the sample. They can cost upwards of ~$10,000, but a $350 DIY high-resolution polarimeter has recently been detailed in a paper by Andrew Harvie , Tom Phillips, and John deMello. The bill of materials for the […]
Tag: Optics
An open-source combiner for inexpensive laser diodes
Scientific-grade lasers are incredibly costly components of modern microscopes. Inexpensive laser diodes are much cheaper, often less than $100, but they have high divergence and an asymmetrical intensity profile, which makes them difficult to efficiently couple into single-mode optical fibers. Instead, they are coupled into multimode fibers, which results in the appearance of laser speckles […]
A Blueprint for Cost-Efficient Localization Microscopy
This paper, “A Blueprint for Cost-Efficient Localization Microscopy,” write it’s own summary better than we ever could: “In this study, we questioned every technical high-end component used in standard localization microscopes to reduce the total cost of a wide-field setup and to ensure continued single-molecule sensitivity. We demonstrate that localization microscopy with subdiffraction resolution on […]
Technical Tuesday: Penny-Pinching Patterned Projection
Today is Technical Tuesday! A long delayed segment where we try to dive a little deeper into the actual costs involved in particular scientific techniques. We hope to show where you can save money, and what you might lose by saving that money. Today’s topic is dynamically patterning light with Digitial Micromirror Devices. With […]
A Cheap Laser Shutter Using a Hard Drive Disk
An anonymous contributor wrote in about making laser shutters using hard disk drive rotary voice-coil actuators. The contributor’s lab has made a couple of these which are controlled via an Arduino, at a much lower cost than shutters from Thorlabs or similar. Another paper of a similar vein, by W. Bowden, R. Hill, G. Baird, and P. […]