Optical cage system

A variety of hardware supports more complex designs, including optical paths that turn corners and adjustable elements.

These injection-molded plastic kits allowed the child to construct various optical instruments such as a telescope, microscope, and spectroscope.

An advanced optical erector set called Microbench was introduced by Spindler & Hoyer in Germany in 1976.

In 1995, Thorlabs simplified the Microbench design by removing the corner-connector bores, and offered it at a cheaper price.

Cage systems have been used by research centres and universities around the world to construct spectroscopy experiments, third-harmonic generation microscopy, fibre optics setups, biomedical instruments, eye surgery apparatus, telescopes, stellar interferometers, imaging systems, vacuum experiments, etc.