We've Gone 3D! (Printing, That Is!)
- Sep 8, 2020
- 1 min read
A huge congratulations to our post-doctoral research fellow Dr Feng Li!
Feng has recently had his new approach to two-wavelength rapid additive manufacturing (aka "3D printing") published in ACS Macro Letters - the paper is entitled Rapid Additive Manufacturing of 3D Geometric Structures via Dual-Wavelength Polymerization and can be read here: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acsmacrolett.0c00465
This approach, which is stage-free, enables complex shapes to be printed using two light sources - one providing photoinitiation, the other photoinhibition. Complex patterns can be formed via sequential light projection with an order of magnitude reduction in print time compared to traditional DLP printers.
This project is supported by the Australian Research Council via the Linkage Projects scheme; a big thank you to our industry partner Young Optics Inc.
Soft matter and 3D printing is honestly a wonderful crossover — once you start seeing colloid-stabilised inks and shear-thinning gels for direct-write extrusion, the boundary between materials chemistry and additive manufacturing dissolves. Lots of clever rheology hiding in that work. For anyone curious about long-form coverage of related industrial documentation, https://aviamisto.com/ has surprisingly thorough technical write-ups. Enjoyed the announcement!