Quantum Tunneling DEMO - Part 1

Prisms are often used for quantum physics, a phenomenon where many aspects are still unexplored. Combining this with optics, makes something possible known as quantum tunneling! For this, one needs at least a laser and two prisms. Here, the only important factor of the laser is its exact location. It is rather nice if the prisms are alligned with the light if we want to see a live action of the tunneling, isn't it?

Naturally, we want the prisms in a specific - and steady! - location where we know for sure nothing can happen to it. After all, nothing is worse than wobbly, unalligned prisms. That's where this instructable about making a prism holder comes in handy!

P.S. This is part of a bigger project, where I (Larissa Krab) have worked together with two other students: Helen van Rooij and Mark Lemmens. However, the prism holder is something I worked on myself. So when I refer to I, I mean Larissa Krab.

You will need the following materials:

• An application to create your design, I used Inkscape
• One plate of plywood of at least 241.5 x 109 mm is needed for the exact sizes I used. For this, I used 3 mm thick plywood.
• One lasercutter for the cutting
• Wood glue
• If needed:
• 2 elastic bands if the 'fingers' are a bit too lose
• Some sand paper if some parts don't fit

The first step is creating a design that gets put into an application that is compatible with the lasercutter. As mentioned earlier, I decided to use Inkscape (see the pictures with information about the parts).

To ensure good stability and easily adjustable location changes, I went for an ''Open Box'' idea, as can be seen in the sketch. This was created so that the top layer could be slightly lower than the full walls. This creates a place where the prisms can be (somewhat tightly) put into.

Since it was easiest to keep everything at a constant layer thickess, a second layer for the pins was made to make sure the box would stay better in position (see 'extra information' and Inkscape design '41-prismahouder-versie2.svg').

And finally, to ensure the slight height difference between the top layer and walls, I used four pillars. This can be seen in both the sketch and Inkscape design.

Extra information: For the montage method, I, together with Helen and Mark, have chosen an IKEA-style solution. With some simple pins with a diameter of 8 mm and a length of roughly 18 mm. One half of the pins gets put into a table (see instructable part 4) the other half gets put into the pin holes of the designs.

Handy Tip: With the general open box shape, I recommend using Makercase (https://www.makercase.com). With just a few clicks and filling in some numbers, it is very easy to create an open box in the size that you want.

NOTE: It is recommended to put the clamping mechanism within this file (see instructable part 2).

Now that the design has been created and translated to ''lasercutting-laguage", it's time for the actual cutting!

In the second picture, you can see all the parts that have been freshly printed. Note that the pillars are already in place (see step 3).

Within this step, the real fun begins: Putting all the loose bits and pieces together and turning them into your ultimate prism holder!

I found it is easiest to firstly put all four walls and two bottom layers together and then determine the exact location of the pillars, also with help from the sketch. Once this is done, a little wood glue can be used to secure the pillars.

Now the top layer can be put on the 'platform' formed by the pillars.

And your prism holder is done!

Handy tip: If the parts are too loose, consider using some elastic bands to keep the parts together (see picture). It can also happen that the parts are too tight, for this it is easiest to do some sanding with sandpaper.