Development of Cost-Effective Diffraction Apparatus Using 3D-Printed Components, Arduino, and a LabVIEW Interface

• Rajyalakshmi Chebrolu ^[1] ; Srikanth Reddy Tulsani ^[2] ; Uday Kumar Voma ^[1]
  1. [1] Indian Institute of Technology Tirupati, Tirupati, India
  2. [2] Malla Reddy College of Engineering and Technology, Hyderabad, India
• Localización: The Physics Teacher, ISSN 0031-921X, Vol. 63, Nº. 6, 2025, págs. 471-474
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • In today’s technologically driven world, 3D printing and Arduino microcontrollers provide an accessible and versatile platform for developing cost-effective devices inside the laboratory to conduct physics experiments for studying basic concepts.1–4 These devices improve the quality of teaching and learning. One important concept is the wave nature of light, and it is central to concepts in various fields such as optical imaging, quantum mechanics, spectroscopy, etc. A simple experiment to study the wave nature of light inside the laboratory focuses on the diffraction of light. Diffraction occurs when the light encounters an obstacle or aperture whose size is comparable to the wavelength of the light. Examining diffraction through a circular aperture helps illuminate the wave nature of light and the concept of the Airy disk. Knowledge of the Airy disk and the properties of the Airy pattern is crucial in designing and optimizing optical instruments such as telescopes, microscopes, and cameras.5 In this article, we describe the development of a cost-effective diffraction apparatus using various components such as 3D-printed components, a diode laser, circular apertures of radius 150 µm and 200 µm (brass nozzles for a 3D printer), a NEMA 17 stepper motor, a TB6600 microstep driver, a TEMT6000 light sensor, an Arduino UNO microcontroller, and a LabVIEW interface. The LabVIEW interface is used to acquire the real-time data from Arduino and data plotting.