Proceedings of Online Meetup: Nanocrystals in Additive Manufacturing (AdditiveNC)
Publication date: 3rd May 2020
Additive manufacturing (AM) is of significant technological and commercial interest due to the ability to expand the design space for 3D structures, thereby leading to novel functions. Two-photon lithography (TPL) is a promising AM technique that relies on nonlinear light absorption to fabricate complex 3D structures with sub-diffraction features in photopolymer materials. It is highly desirable to have a scalable TPL process that can quickly fabricate large 3D structures with nanoscale features. However, there has traditionally been a tradeoff between speed and feature size that has limited the scalability. We have recently developed a high-throughput nanoscale AM technique based on parallelization of TPL. Our technique increases the material processing rate by three orders of magnitude while preserving the nanoscale feature sizes. The technique relies on simultaneous spatial and temporal focusing of an ultrafast laser to implement projection-based layer-by-layer printing. Our method allows access to difficult to explore regions in the design space, increasing both the potential for cost-effective high-throughput processing and the geometric complexity of the printed objects