DIY Smartphone and Webcam Spectrometer Kit

This is a DIY — Do It Yourself — spectrometer kit. It is an educational project that you must assemble yourself.

Full Kit Contents

The kit includes:

• One entrance slits 100 µm 
• Two high-quality transmission diffraction gratings:
  • 500 lines/mm
  • 1000 lines/mm
• Pre-cuttable black cardboard for building the spectrometer body

How It Works

You will build the spectrometer body using the black cardboard supplied in the kit.

Following the assembly instructions, you will need to:

1. Cut and fold the black cardboard to create the spectrometer body.
2. Install the entrance slit.
3. Insert one of the supplied transmission diffraction gratings.
4. Attach the assembled spectrometer to a smartphone, computer webcam, digital camera or compatible imaging device.
5. Acquire images of the spectrum.
6. Calibrate and analyse the recorded spectra.

The camera in your smartphone, computer or webcam acts as the detector.

Important Information

This kit does not include:

• An electronic detector
• A complete electronic spectrometer
• A smartphone
• A computer
• A webcam
• A digital camera

You are purchasing the components required to build a DIY optical spectrometer. A compatible camera or imaging device must be supplied separately by the user.

Project Background

Our DIY Smartphone Spectrometer is inspired by the open-source Public Lab spectrometer project.

Compared with basic cardboard spectrometer kits, our version includes several important improvements:

• A genuine, high-quality linear transmission diffraction grating
• Two different grating densities: 500 lines/mm and 1000 lines/mm
• Two entrance slits for experimenting with spectral resolution and light intensity
• Components suitable for educational demonstrations, experiments and introductory spectroscopy projects

After assembly, you can use the spectrometer to observe and record spectra from different light sources, calibrate the images and share your experimental results.

An example of a user application can be found here:

https://stevesopenlab.org/convert-your-smartphone-into-a-spectroscope/

Please note that the final spectral resolution and measurement quality will depend on the assembly accuracy, the selected slit and grating, the camera used, the optical alignment and the calibration method.