New 3D printing technique is 30 times faster than traditional methods

Light-based 3D printing is capable of creating small objects in tens of seconds with high resolution.

A team at the Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL) has developed a light-based 3D printing technique about 30 times faster than traditional 3D printing that can fabricate objects in 20 seconds instead of 10 minutes. as usual. The new study was published in the journal Advanced Science on May 18.

EPFL's light-based 3D printing is fast and can be done with opaque plastics. (Photo: EPFL)

Conventional 3D printing involves laying layers of material on a substrate and letting it harden. However, EPFL's method takes a completely different approach, much faster.

"We pour the resin into a container and spin it. We then shine the light on the barrel at different angles, causing the resin to harden in places where the energy accumulated in the resin exceeds a certain level. This method gives high accuracy and can produce objects with a resolution similar to current 3D printing techniques," said Christophe Moser, professor at EPFL's Laboratory of Applied Photonic Devices.

Making the object this way is incredibly fast, the team says, taking only tens of seconds instead of minutes. Another advantage is that it is possible to print shapes with complex hollows without the need for additional support structures as with flatbed printers.

Previously, the problem with light-based 3D printing was that only transparent plastics could be used because anything that contained a hint of color, such as the opaque plastic used in biomedical artificial arteries, would bends and distorts light as it passes through, causing a sharp drop in resolution and unflattering printed objects.

In the new study, Moser and colleagues developed a technique that allows the use of opaque plastics. The team of experts fitted a rear video camera to calculate the light's path through the plastic. After analyzing the light that passed through, they created a distortion correction algorithm and input printed instructions when the machine was operating, helping to distribute the correct amount of energy to each point.

Printing of opaque plastic objects is still very fast. The team printed a miniature model of Yoda (a character from the "Star Wars" series) in just about 20 seconds. The product also has the same resolution as transparent plastic, about 1/10 mm. The team is working to increase the resolution by 100 times, aiming to achieve micrometer-level accuracy.