Researchers from MIT and the University of Texas at Austin have demonstrated a portable 3D printer about the size of a wireless earpods case. The proof-of-concept device is powered by a millimeter-scale photonic chip that emits reconfigurable beams of light into a resin well, curing material into solid shapes as it goes.
The innovative device, with no moving parts, uses an array of tiny optical antennas to steer a light beam into a specially designed liquid resin. This resin rapidly cures when exposed to the visible light beam, allowing the chip to 3D print intricate two-dimensional patterns, such as the letters M-I-T, in mere seconds.
“This system is completely rethinking what a 3D printer is,” said Jelena Notaros, a professor in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) at MIT. “It is no longer a big box sitting on a bench in a lab creating objects, but something that is handheld and portable.”
Published in Nature Light Science and Applications, the research involved an interdisciplinary team combining silicon photonics and photochemistry. The resulting prototype consists of a single photonic chip containing an array of 160-nanometer-thick optical antennas. Fun fact: a sheet of paper is about 100,000 nanometers thick. The entire chip fits onto a U.S. quarter.
In future, the research team envisions a photonic chip that can emit a 3D hologram of visible light, curing an entire object in just one step. Such a portable 3D printer could be used in numerous applications, such as enabling clinicians to create custom medical devices or allowing engineers to make rapid prototypes on-site.
Looks like a portable 3D printer that fits in the palm of your hand, capable of creating customized, low-cost items on the go is becoming a reality.
