One-photon three-dimensional printed fused silica glass with sub-micron features.

Nat Commun

State Key Laboratory of Ultra-precision Machining Technology, Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Kowloon, Hong Kong, SAR, China.

Published: March 2024

The applications of silica-based glass have evolved alongside human civilization for thousands of years. High-precision manufacturing of three-dimensional (3D) fused silica glass objects is required in various industries, ranging from everyday life to cutting-edge fields. Advanced 3D printing technologies have emerged as a potent tool for fabricating arbitrary glass objects with ultimate freedom and precision. Stereolithography and femtosecond laser direct writing respectively achieved their resolutions of ~50 μm and ~100 nm. However, fabricating glass structures with centimeter dimensions and sub-micron features remains challenging. Presented here, our study effectively bridges the gap through engineering suitable materials and utilizing one-photon micro-stereolithography (OμSL)-based 3D printing, which flexibly creates transparent and high-performance fused silica glass components with complex, 3D sub-micron architectures. Comprehensive characterizations confirm that the final material is stoichiometrically pure silica with high quality, defect-free morphology, and excellent optical properties. Homogeneous volumetric shrinkage further facilitates the smallest voxel, reducing the size from 2.0 × 2.0 × 1.0 μm to 0.8 × 0.8 × 0.5 μm. This approach can be used to produce fused silica glass components with various 3D geometries featuring sub-micron details and millimetric dimensions. This showcases promising prospects in diverse fields, including micro-optics, microfluidics, mechanical metamaterials, and engineered surfaces.

Download full-text PDF

Source
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10973333PMC
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-46929-xDOI Listing

Publication Analysis

Top Keywords

fused silica
16
silica glass
16
sub-micron features
8
glass objects
8
glass components
8
glass
7
silica
5
one-photon three-dimensional
4
three-dimensional printed
4
fused
4

Similar Publications

Want AI Summaries of new PubMed Abstracts delivered to your In-box?

Enter search terms and have AI summaries delivered each week - change queries or unsubscribe any time!