Researchers have developed photonic devices that manipulate light to enable innovative applications, like pocket-sized 3D printers.
Sabrina Corsetti, a PhD candidate at MIT, and her collaborators in the Photonics and Electronics Research Group developed chip-sized devices that enable previously unimaginable applications that push the boundaries of what is possible in optics.
The team, led by Professor Jelena Notaros, built the 3D printer that emits a reconfigurable beam of light into resin to create solid shapes. Small enough to sit in the palm of one’s hand, the innovation is expected to enable a user to rapidly fabricate customized, low-cost objects on the go.
System consists of only single millimeter-scale photonic chip
Researchers revealed that they combined the fields of silicon photonics and photochemistry to propose the first chip-based 3D printer. They underlined that the system consists of only a single millimeter-scale photonic chip without any moving parts that emits reconfigurable visible-light holograms into a simple, stationary resin well to enable non-mechanical 3D printing.
The team experimentally demonstrated 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.
Compact, portable, and low-cost 3D printers
Researchers claimed that their approach demonstrates the first steps towards a highly compact, portable, and low-cost solution for the next generation of 3D printers.
Researchers believe that creating 3D objects in the palm of the hand within seconds using only a single photonic chip can transform modern manufacturing as 3D printing has revolutionized the way innovators 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. But the MIT team’s latest innovation addresses these limitations.
They also created a miniature “tractor beam” that uses a beam of light to capture and manipulate biological particles using a chip. This could help biologists study DNA or investigate the mechanisms of disease without contaminating tissue samples.
The tiny device uses a tightly focused beam of light to capture and manipulate cells. The innovation introduces a new modality for integrated optical tweezers, significantly expanding their utility and compatibility with existing applications, especially for biological experiments.
Chip-based 3D-printing technology
Researchers expect that the chip-based 3D-printing technology introduced in this work has the potential to enable a highly-compact, portable, and low-cost solution for the next generation of 3D printers. Such a solution would offer a more accessible and rapid mechanism for generating 3D objects, impacting a wide range of application areas, including military, medical, engineering, and consumer, according to the team’s approach.
So far, numerous methods have been commercialized for 3D printing using extrusion, powder-bed fusion, jetting, and light-induced polymerization, among other techniques. At the consumer level, fused deposition modeling (FDM), an extrusion-based method, is the most widely used type of 3D printing.