Everthing is pre-mounted. Please have your staff set it up before. By removing the collimating lens, the output fans out in a highly eccentric elliptical profile which allows one side to serve as reference beam and the other side as object beam. Without using any optical elements, we can make very bright and panoramic transmission holograms on a sand box. For more advance laboratory exercises and lecture demonstrations, the addition of a mirror and a ground glass allows one to make more advanced holograms and perform holographic interferometry on phase objects.
Holographic experiments are very illustrative for understanding modern optics.
The required optical component is expensive. Furthermore, the collimated light can cause eye injuries. By removing the collimating lens from a diode laser, the light from the laser spreads out in a highly eccentric elliptical shape with no interference or diffraction patterns. The finished hologram is viewable with the same diode laser or a point source of incandescent light. These holograms appear to be brighter than side-lighted transmission holograms.