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Introduction and Objectives**

Optical spectrometers are scientific instruments which can provide a huge amount of information about the chemical and physical nature of our surroundings. Despite the fact that there are several DIY spectrometers (which are easy to build) they are, usually, not suitable to be used in some experiments such as the analysis of the Fraunhofer lines of the solar spectrum or the study of the raman spectrum of a molecule. For that purposes, a high resolution spectrometer is required, unfortunately professional equipments are usually expensive and hence, not accessible to the student or undergraduate. Therefore, the main objective of this project is to build a fully functional, high resolution DIY spectrometer with the lowest possible budget.

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Design of the spectrometer**

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The general design of the spectrometer is pretty simple:

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The spectrometer is composed of:

-An optical input (where the light enters the spectrometer).

-An entrance slit, which allows only a small fraction of the light to reach the diffraction grating (increases the net resolution achieved).

-A diffraction grating (I am using a DVD as diffraction grating).

-A focusing lens.

-A CDD detector (as detector, I am using an old 1100D Canon DSLR camera).

Most of the components of the spectrometer were designed and 3D printed. The total cost of the spectrometer is below 200 €.

Results

Here you have some examples of the results obtained with this spectrometer.

(Wavelength is given in nm)

Neon discharge lamp

The following table shows the experimental spectral lines obtained for the Ne discharge lamp vs the reference data.

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Solar spectrum

High pressure sodium lamp

Further Development (In progress)

Currently, the spectrometer could be further improved mainly through the development of different accessories to which it can be coupled. These may include a UV-VIS spectrophotometer unit (oriented mainly for chemistry experiments) or a Plasma discharge-Optical emission spectrometer unit.

Note : All the details of this project are included in the following PDF file (If you are planning on producing or improving my work I would highly recommend you to have a look to it).

Here you have a small video about the spectrometer : https://youtu.be/DXkHjGL9CaA

DSLR_spectrometer.pdf