What you’ll learn:
How this 3D printer differs in technical approach and size from “conventional” units.
How the laser beam is managed and steered to cure the unique resin.
The results that were achieved using this proof-of-concept 3D printer.
It’s well known that additive manufacturing (AM) of various distinct types and using a range of materials, often collectively referred to as “3D printing” in popular terminology, has dramatically changed if not revolutionized (a word I don’t use casually) prototyping, model building, repair and maintenance, and even some production-scale manufacturing lines.
AM has also enabled fabrication of objects that would be difficult or impossible to create using traditional forming, molding, casting, etching, or machining operations. While the size of these 3D printers varies, they’re typically tabletop size measuring a few feet on each side.
But that printer-size requirement may be scaled down, especially for small objects. Researchers from MIT and the University of Texas at Austin worked together to develop and demonstrate a tiny proof-of-concept, chip-based 3D printer by combining silicon photonics and advanced photochemistry to create what they maintain is the first such printer.
The system developed by MIT consists of only a single millimeter-scale photonic chip without any moving parts. It emits reconfigurable visible-light holograms up into a simple stationary resin well that cures into a solid shape when light strikes it, thus enabling non-mechanical 3D printing. You can think of it as a “personal” 3D printer.
Breakthrough in Additive Manufacturing: 3D Printer Principle and Design
The prototype chip has no moving parts, and instead uses an array of tiny optical antennas to steer a beam of light. The beams of these antennas aren’t steered by MEMS-type micromirrors. Rather, the research team developed an integrated optical-phased-array system to steer the beams of light by using a series of microscale optical antennas fabricated on a chip using semiconductor manufacturing processes (Fig. 1).