Corsetti Sabrina, Notaros Milica, Sneh Tal, Stafford Alex, Page Zachariah A, Notaros Jelena
Research Laboratory of Electronics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, 02139, USA.
Department of Chemistry, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, 78712, USA.
Light Sci Appl. 2024 Jun 6;13(1):132. doi: 10.1038/s41377-024-01478-2.
Imagine if it were possible to create 3D objects in the palm of your hand within seconds using only a single photonic chip. Although 3D printing has revolutionized the way we create in nearly every aspect of modern society, current 3D printers rely on large and complex mechanical systems to enable layer-by-layer addition of material. This limits print speed, resolution, portability, form factor, and material complexity. Although there have been recent efforts in developing novel photocuring-based 3D printers that utilize light to transform matter from liquid resins to solid objects using advanced methods, they remain reliant on bulky and complex mechanical systems. To address these limitations, we combine the fields of silicon photonics and photochemistry to propose the first chip-based 3D printer. The proposed system consists of only a single millimeter-scale photonic chip without any moving parts that emits reconfigurable visible-light holograms up into a simple stationary resin well to enable non-mechanical 3D printing. Furthermore, we experimentally demonstrate a stereolithography-inspired proof-of-concept version of the chip-based 3D printer using a visible-light beam-steering integrated optical phased array and visible-light-curable resin, showing 3D printing using a chip-based system for the first time. This work demonstrates the first steps towards a highly-compact, portable, and low-cost solution for the next generation of 3D printers.
想象一下，如果仅使用单个光子芯片就能在几秒钟内在手掌中创建三维物体。尽管3D打印已经在现代社会的几乎每个方面彻底改变了我们的创作方式，但目前的3D打印机依赖于大型且复杂的机械系统来实现逐层添加材料。这限制了打印速度、分辨率、便携性、外形尺寸和材料复杂性。尽管最近有人致力于开发新型的基于光固化的3D打印机，这些打印机利用光通过先进方法将液态树脂中的物质转变为固体物体，但它们仍然依赖于庞大而复杂的机械系统。为了解决这些限制，我们将硅光子学和光化学领域结合起来，提出了第一台基于芯片的3D打印机。所提出的系统仅由一个毫米级的光子芯片组成，没有任何移动部件，该芯片向上发射可重新配置的可见光全息图到一个简单的固定树脂槽中，以实现非机械3D打印。此外，我们通过实验展示了一种受立体光刻启发的基于芯片的3D打印机的概念验证版本，该版本使用了可见光光束转向集成光学相控阵和可见光固化树脂，首次展示了使用基于芯片的系统进行3D打印。这项工作展示了迈向为下一代3D打印机提供高度紧凑、便携且低成本解决方案的第一步。
