From Lab to Fab — High‐Precision 3D Printing

Abstract

The demand of sophisticated components is continuously increasing, driven by big data, IoT, and Industry 4.0. Reducing process cost is impacting all levels in a vast majority of products. 3D printing is typically restricted to additive fabrication within one material class, structures are limited in size, shape, surface finish, requiring supporting structures. This prevents high quality photonic components. High precision 3D printing is utilizing a multiphoton process which is a powerful tool for prototyping of miniaturized designs in automated, scalable processes for products in photonic or medical packaging. While most of the 3D systems are still working rather on a lab than on an industrial scale with typically very long fabrication times ranging from minutes to hours for a single microlens, the process can be boosted significantly to a fabrication time in the range of seconds per lens using different fabrication strategies, resulting in microlenses with high optical quality. This saves more than 90 % of the fabrication time compared to standard fabrication, and 1 cm2 lens arrays with high filling factors can be fabricated within only a few hours — a big step towards high throughput and industrial scalability.

3D printed microfluidic device with integrated optical sensing for particle analysis

“…Such algorithms have proved valuable in numerous fields, including microfluidics 63 and experimental optimisation 56 . To improve the resolution of the device to detect smaller particles, a more advanced optical system could be used, and/or a printed lens 64 integrated into the microflow cytometer.…”

A Review on Significant Role of Additive Manufacturing in Biomedical Applications

“…Stender et al [13] discussed the reduction of the processing time of the product by additive manufacturing. The additive manufacturing technique saves more than 90% of the fabrication time compared to standard fabrication, and 1 cm2 lens arrays with high filling factors can be fabricated within only a few hours-a big step towards high throughput and industrial scalability.…”

Polymerization Photoinitiators with Near-Resonance Enhanced Two-Photon Absorption Cross-Section: Toward High-Resolution Photoresist with Improved Sensitivity

“…As a matter of fact, to become more than a “laboratory curiosity”, two-photon additive manufacturing needs to face the challenge of high-throughput, large-area printing of surfaces. − To this end, endeavors are focused on the optimization of both optical setups ,, and photoresist sensitivity.…”