Project Description

A spectrophotometer is a laboratory instrument that measures light absorbance of a sample for every wavelength in a spectrum.

This project aimed to create a spectrophotometer suitable for molecular biology research while having a low cost. Biology researchers use spectrophotometers to find the concentration of proteins, DNA, and other important molecules in the samples they use. This is accomplished by measuring how much light of a certain wavelength is absorbed by the sample and calculating the concentration using Beer-Lambert Law.

Application

A cheap spectrometer shouldn't be frustrating to use.

Many spectrophotometers exist for biology with varying accuracy, cost, and usability. As the required accuracy goes down, customers can choose from more affordable options, but the usability generally suffers as a result. With recent advances in embedded systems and manufacturing, we found the luxuries of top models could be brought to lower resolution devices without driving up the cost. This project aimed to get the lowest price point possible for a given resolution while providing a simple user interface and USB communication for quick and easy testing.