Imploding Tiny 3D Prints

If you think about 3D printing, the ultimate goal would be to lay down specific atoms or molecule and build anything. Despite a few lab demonstrations at that scale, generally, it is easier to print in the macro scale than the micro. While it won’t get down to the molecule level, implosion fabrication is a new technique researchers hope will allow you to print large things and then shrink them. The paper describing the process appeared in Science. If you don’t want to pay your way through the paywall, you can read a summary on NewScientist or C&EN. Or you can scour the usual sources.

The team at MIT uses the same material that is found in disposable diapers. A laser traces patterns and the light reacts to a chemical implanted in the diaper material (sodium polyacrylate). That material can swell to many times its normal size which is why it is used in diapers. In this case, though, the material is swollen first and then reduced back to normal size.

Using this process has resulted in features as fine as 10 nanometers. If your 3D printer is well-tuned you might do 0.1 mm layer heights. A 10-nanometer structure is 10,000 times smaller than that.

Oddly enough, the process is the reverse of a process used to “zoom up” brain tissue samples for examination. The technique doesn’t require too many specialized tools, although you do need a “two-photon laser” which is not as exotic as it sounds and is used in fluorescence microscopy.

The real issue, of course, is going to be how repeatable and predictable the scaling is. Usually getting higher print resolutions means a finer nozzle, but this is an entirely different concept.