Hybridizing Lithography-Based Ceramic Additive Manufacturing with Two-Photon-Polymerization

Abstract

Stereolithography processes such as lithography-based ceramic manufacturing (LCM) are technologies that can produce centimeter-sized structures in a reasonable time frame. However, for some parts specifications, they lack resolution. Two-photon-polymerization (2PP) ensures the highest geometric accuracy in additive manufacturing so far. Nevertheless, building up parts in sizes as large as a few millimeters or even centimeters is a time-consuming process, which makes the production of 2PP printed parts very costly. Regarding feedstock specification, the requirements for 2PP are different to those for LCM, and generally, feedstocks are designed to meet requirements for only one of these manufacturing technologies. In an attempt to fabricate highly precise ceramic components of a rather large size, it is necessary to develop a feedstock that suits both light-based technologies, taking advantage of LCM’s higher productivity and 2PP’s accuracy. Hybridization should bring the desired precision to the region of interest on reasonably large parts without escalating printing time and costs. In this study, specimens gained from a transparent feedstock with yttria stabilized zirconia (YSZ) particles of 5 nm at 70 wt% were presented. The resin was originally designed to suit 2PP, while being also printable with LCM. This work demonstrates how hybrid parts can be sintered into full YSZ ceramics.

Two-Photon Polymerization Printing with High Metal Nanoparticle Loading

“…Although the printing was successful with Rh–PI 2 in terms of light-triggered interactions and dispersibility in the photoresist formulation, further development in the 2PP printing system would be required. The addition of a higher concentration of NPs affected the light transmission in the visible range, i.e., the vision through the resin, which is highly dependent on the photoresist thickness and shows exponential behavior following the Beer–Lambert law . This phenomenon made identification of the substrate–resin interface troublesome for correct polymerization initiation.…”

“…The addition of a higher concentration of NPs affected the light transmission in the visible range, i.e., the vision through the resin, which is highly dependent on the photoresist thickness and shows exponential behavior following the Beer–Lambert law. 45 This phenomenon made identification of the substrate–resin interface troublesome for correct polymerization initiation. The integration of an extra auxiliary lamp in the 2PP setup could increase the brightness and might solve the visibility problem, eventually allowing a further increase in the NP concentration.…”

Microplastic response of 2PP‐printed ceramics

“…Two different designs of ceramic microblocks, SchwarzP and cubes, were printed by 2PP in direct contact onto a supportive substrate for facilitated handling. The substrate is prepared from a macroscopic layer of resin, cross‐linked by UV radiation prior to the printing of the microblocks 16 . Using different infill line distances for the print of 0.5 and 2 µm creates dense and hollow blocks, respectively.…”

“…The substrate is prepared from a macroscopic layer of resin, cross-linked by UV radiation prior to the printing of the microblocks. 16 Using different infill line distances for the print of 0.5 and 2 µm creates dense and hollow blocks, respectively. This allows for testing the influence of designed porosity at this high volumetric resolution.…”

Additive and Lithographic Manufacturing of Biomedical Scaffold Structures Using a Versatile Thiol-Ene Photocurable Resin

“…The importance was recently emphasised by Skliutas et al [ 6 ], as they formulated a bio-based acrylate resin and fabricated structures over a range of five orders of magnitude using DLP and nanolithography. In addition, Sänger et al [ 7 ] employed photopolymerisation of acrylate-based ceramic slurries for the fabrication of hybrid multiscale structures ranging from several mm to the µm range using lithographic ceramic manufacturing and two-photon polymerisation, employing the same feedstock of ceramic slurry, but tailoring the absorption spectra of the initiator system to the emission spectra of the AMTs.…”