Scientists at Heriot-Watt University have developed an advanced 3D-printing technique that can significantly impact manufacturing. The group, led Dr. Jose Marques-Hueso of Institute of Sensors, Signals, and Systems, developed a new 3D printing method that uses near-infrared lights to create complex structures with different materials and colors.
Scientists achieved this by modifying stereolithography and pushing the boundaries of multimaterial integration. A 3D-printer would typically use a blue or UV laser to selectively solidify liquid resin. Intermixing of materials is a problem.
Through this project, the scientists use a NIR light source capable of printing at far greater depths into the resin vat – without the need to print in layers. The findings hold tremendous opportunities for industry – particularly those that rely on specialist parts such as in the health and electrical sectors.
“The novelty of our new method, which has never been done before, is to use the NIR invisibility windows of materials to print at a depth of over 5cm, whereas the conventional technology has a depth limit of around 0.1mm. This means that you can print with one material and later add a second material, solidifying it at any position of the 3D space, and not only on top of the outer surfaces,” said Dr. Marques-Hueso. “For example, we can print a hollow cube that is mostly sealed on all sides. We can then come back later and print an object, made from an entirely different material, inside this box, because the NIR laser will penetrate through the previous material as if it were invisible, because, in fact, it is completely transparent at the NIR.”
“Fused Deposition Modelling (FDM) technology was already able to intermix materials, but FDM has a low resolution, where the layers are visible, while light-based technologies, such as stereolithography, can provide smooth samples with resolutions under five micrometers,” said Dr. Adilet Zhakeyev, a Ph.D. researcher at Heriot-Watt University who has worked on the project for nearly three years.
Heriot-Watt University says that a key part of the project is the development of engineered polymers containing nanoparticles that exhibit the optical upconversion phenomenon. These nanoparticles transform the NIR photons into blue photons that solidify the resin. This occurrence is ‘non-linear’ – meaning it can obtain the blue photons mostly at the focus of the laser, and not on the way through it. This is why the NIR can penetrate deeply into the material and solidify the material only within.
The new 3D printing method allows multiple materials, with different properties, to be printed in the same sample – for example, flexible elastomers and rigid acrylic, which are useful for many businesses, such as shoe production. This technique offers a wide range of possibilities including 3D-printing objects in cavities, restoring broken objects and even bioprinting on skin.
“In the same research project, we had previously developed a resin that can be selectively copper-plated,” said Dr. Marques-Hueso. “Combining both technologies, we can now 3D print with two different resins and selectively cover just one of them in copper by using a simple plating solution bath. This way, we can create integrated circuitry in 3D, which is very useful for the electronics industry.”
This technology offers an exciting glimpse of the near future but the costs are shockingly low. According to Dr. Marques-Hueso, “A clear advantage of this technique is that the full machine can be built for less than £400. Some other advanced technologies that use lasers, such as Two-Photon Polymerisation (2PP), require expensive ultrafast lasers in the order of tens of thousands of pounds, but this is not our case because our specialist materials allow the use of inexpensive lasers… Now that we have results to support our claims, we hope to partner with businesses and develop this technology further.”
The project, titled ‘Multimaterial Stereolithography by Crosslinking through Luminescence Excitation‘, has received £280,000 of funding from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). Its findings were published in Applied Materials Today.