O3Q Waveoptics with 3d printed optic cubes

Quantum technology is an emerging field of physics and engineering, which relies on the preparation and manipulation of single qubits. The need for education in this field is increasing, while still remaining challenging. The Michselson Interferometer for example can be constructed for education in schools or universities in different ways: In addition to significantly expensive commercial interferometer sets such as the PASCO OS-9258B, there are also other low-cost versions for the 3D printer and even setups using LEGO (R)-Bricks. An  approach using 3d printed parts is the experimental kit originally developed by IPHT Leibniz Institut Jena as a low cost microscopy toolbox (www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-19447-9#citeas).

“Optic Cubes”,  which allow for a large variety of experiments in high school. It is designed as a modular system, where the individual optical components are placed in separate cubes, which can be placed on a magnetic baseplate. Besides experiments like microscope also interferometers are possible. For further Experiments like the Michelson- and the Mach-Zehnder interferometer we have improved and extended die Parts in regard to technical and didactic aspects.

 

You can download the complete stl-files for the Michelson and Mach-Zehnder interferometer from the official Website: O3Q.de (Englisch translation will follow.)

The License for the files is CERN OHL v.1.2 – the stl-files are based on the original design from https://github.com/bionanoimaging of IPHT Leibniz Institut Jena.

Our corresponding article is published in Physics Education: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1361-6552/ac4106