Used Equipment as a path to research.

Starting up a lab can be very expensive. Equipment for optics research can easily exceed 5 digits, and to get running, you want to have a few tools at your disposal. At the same time, university is often a place where a lot of funding is also spent unwisely. Companies are happy to take public grant money, and price competition is low. Something I discovered in the US is how used equipment makes many startups fly and sometimes even speeds up time to experiment, because you do not have to wait for lead time.

Spending public money on used equipment is something I like, and something I want to use heavily in my research. Equipment should not be dead after 10 years. Students should understand their equipment well enough to also use used equipment. A lot of people on X (originally Twitter) show how they make their homelabs run on used equipment. Luckily, the days of building a full laser are over, but understanding an old laser, refurbishing it, or making it run again is something a student nowadays should know how to do.

The challenges, of course, are that the used equipment market is much smaller in Europe, German customs is a mess, and one regularly has the feeling that they are just trying to protect German companies. Universities really do not like to buy from eBay here or pay upfront. My first acquisitions were a few pulsed lasers (femto- and nanosecond), SPADs, and optical circulators.

If you are selling or donating used (but good) equipment for nano-fabrication or optics for a reasonable price in Europe, please reach out.