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

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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

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