Researchers develop a low-cost setup for Hamamatsu’s micro-spectrometer

By Gary Spingarn, Hamamatsu Corporation

Researchers at Food + Future CoLab—a collaboration among Target, design firm Ideo, and the MIT Media Lab—created an extremely inexpensive "fit for purpose" spectroscopy system with Hamamatsu’s C12880MA micro-spectrometer. This was done by using open source software to integrate the C12880MA with a low-cost Arduino microcontroller, and also by selecting inexpensive options for their sample container and light source. These components are housed in an enclosure that was fabricated with a 3D printer.

Using this low-cost system, the researchers generated spectra of various beverages and cooking oils as shown below. Their setup demonstrates that experimenters who wish to avoid cumbersome benchtop units can still make useful spectroscopic measurements on a small budget.

To read details of the low-cost setup, go to https://impfs.github.io/review/

Notes:

• For questions about the low-cost setup described above, please contact Don Blair at Food + Future.
• Hamamatsu recommends the C13016 evaluation circuit for making initial evaluations of the C12880MA micro-spectrometer. Details of the C13016 evaluation circuit are included in the C12880MA datasheet.