Low cost 3D-printing used in an undergraduate project: an integrating sphere for measurement of photoluminescence quantum yield

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

8 Citations (Scopus)
3400 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

We report upon the exploitation of the latest 3D printing technologies to provide low-cost instrumentation solutions, for use in an undergraduate level final-year project. The project addresses prescient research issues in optoelectronics, which would otherwise be inaccessible to such undergraduate student projects. The experimental use of an integrating sphere in conjunction with a desktop spectrometer presents opportunities to use easily handled, low cost materials as a means to illustrate many areas of physics such as spectroscopy, lasers, optics, simple circuits, black body radiation and data gathering. Presented here is a 3rd year undergraduate physics project which developed a low cost (£25) method to manufacture an experimentally accurate integrating sphere by 3D printing. Details are given of both a homemade internal reflectance coating formulated from readily available materials, and a robust instrument calibration method using a tungsten bulb. The instrument is demonstrated to give accurate and reproducible experimental measurements of luminescence quantum yield of various semiconducting fluorophores, in excellent agreement with literature values.
Original languageEnglish
Article number055501
Number of pages14
JournalEuropean Journal of Physics
Volume37
Publication statusPublished - 13 Jul 2016

Keywords

  • light, optics, fluorescence, 3D-printing, spectroscopy

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Low cost 3D-printing used in an undergraduate project: an integrating sphere for measurement of photoluminescence quantum yield'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this