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

We present a microscope equipped with a video camera as an educational tool. This system 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. We demonstrate how 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 diffraction, and Fraunhofer diffraction. Thus, this instrument can be used in an instructional laboratory to illustrate the theoretical foundations of an undergraduate optics course and beyond.