The matters of producing optical elements for educational purposes

The Student Research Laboratory for Optical Engineering was founded in 2014 at the Dept. of Applied and Computer Optics in ITMO University. Students there work on various optical, design, lighting and technological projects and find like-minded team for creating of coworking-groups in the student laboratory. It is highly difficult to provide practicaloriented activity in the laboratory without the use of elementary optical elements, which are supposed to be components of educational projects and activities. The review of traditional approaches for production of optical elements showed that currently there are no technologies in the optical industry, capable of solving this problem. The produced optical components must meet following requirements: a). to be capable to visualize optical elements work principles; b). to be produced rapid and laborless; c). to be affordable for students. This paper presents results of the experimental work, the technological process and the obtained elements characteristics, which were produced in two different ways. The optical elements angles were measured by goniometer and compared with preset tolerances.