3D-printed microscope with illumination for undergraduate wave optics laboratory

TL;DR

This paper introduces a customizable 3D-printed microscope with LED illumination and a video camera, designed as an educational tool for undergraduate wave optics experiments, enabling hands-on learning of optical phenomena.

Contribution

It presents a low-cost, easily assembled microscope with integrated illumination and imaging capabilities for teaching wave optics in undergraduate laboratories.

Findings

Enables quantitative study of refraction and interference

Demonstrates diffraction phenomena like Newton's rings

Provides an accessible educational platform for optics experiments

Abstract

We present an educational tool, a microscope with a video camera, that can be fabricated either from a standard microscope or assembled from inexpensive, commercially available components (objectives, beam splitters, LEDs, linear stages) and 3D-printed elements. Usage of interference filters in combination with white light-emitting diode (LED) illumination enables the quantitative study of optical phenomena such as refraction, interference (e.g., Newton's rings), Fresnel and Fraunhofer diffraction. Thus, we propose an instrument that can be used to illustrate the theoretical foundations of an undergraduate optics course and beyond.