alt Hacker Newsyou can go much cheaper if you use a microscope slide or similar as the "beam splitter". Its not 50/50 so the fringe contrast will be lower, but in interferometry one is typically more interested in maintaining the position of a peak or number of peaks traversed...
alternatively one can use a more grazing sharper angle of incidence to bring it closer to 50/50 beam splitting, but then the internal reflections become stronger and the setup is no longer a nice orthogonal one (but how often is that really necessary for a task?)
yeah I cheated a little bit, but
> Ok, time to confess: I did cheat a little in calling it the “cheapest” Michelson interferometer, since technically even this beam splitter is like 16 USD, but it is very possible to use a microscope slide instead at the cost of some contrast, which will net out to < 20 cents, even at pretty expensive per-unit prices.
:)