Common digital kitchen scales have a surprisingly high sampling rate in their sensor, but any data logging using a kitchen scale is limited to the sampling rate of the scientist writing down the data. But now, there is a preprint paper on hacking a digital kitchen scale to record data to a computer by D […]
Tag: Articles
Make a polarimeter for $350
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 […]
$1200 for a Super Resolution Capable Microscope
A new paper shows the practicality of using Super Resolution Radial Fluctuation (SSRF) on an OpenFlexure Microscope. SSRF microscopy is a form of Super Resolution microscopy that relies on a post-processing method to generate a radiality map for each frame. This map is used to look for temporal correlations across frames to create an image […]
Easy Expansion of Field of View in Two-Photon Set Up
Two-photon micrsocopy is useful for reducing photo-damage and seeing deep into tissue samples. First patented in 1990 by Winfried Denk and James Strickler, it’s a technique that has been used for decades in neuroscience as a minimally invasive way to image neurons in real time. But we’ve already covered how to make one of those […]
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 […]