Factorization structures with a 2-dimensional factor

We introduce the notion of quantum duplicates of an (associative, unital) algebra, motivated by the problem of constructing toy-models for quantizations of certain configuration spaces in quantum mechanics. The proposed (algebraic) model relies on the classification of factorization structures with a two-dimensional factor. In the present paper, main properties of this particular kind of structures are determined, and we present a complete description of quantum duplicates of finite set algebras. As an application, we obtain a classification (up to isomorphism) of all the algebras of dimension 4 (over an arbitrary field) that can be factorized as a product of two factors.