Nanoscribe, a spin-off from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany, has developed a tabletop 3D microprinter that can create complicated microstructures 100 times faster than is possible today.

"If something took one hour to make, it now takes one minute," says Michael Thiel, chief scientific officer at Nanoscribe.

While 3D printing of toys, iPhone covers and jewelry continues to grab headlines, much of 3D printing's impact could be at a much smaller scale. Micrometer-scale printing has shown promise for making medical and electronic devices.

Thiel says it should be possible to speed up his company's microprinting technique even more in the future. Nanoscribe plans to start selling its machine in the second half of this year.

Printing microstructures with features a few hundred nanometers in size could be useful for making heart stents, microneedles for painless shots, gecko adhesives, parts for microfluidics chips, and scaffolds for growing cells and tissue. Another important application could be in the electronics industry, where patterning nanoscale features on chips currently involves slow, expensive techniques. 3D printing would quickly and cheaply yield polymer templates that could be used to make metallic structures.

So far, 3D microprinting has been used only in research laboratories because it's pretty slow. In fact, many research labs around the world use Nanoscribe’s first-generation printer. The new, faster machine will also find commercial use. Thiel says numerous medical, life sciences, and nanotechnology companies are interested in the new machine. "I'm positive that with the faster throughput we get with this new tool, it might have an industrial breakthrough very soon," he says.

The technology behind most 3D microprinters is called two-photon polymerization. It involves focusing tiny, ultrashort pulses from a near-infrared laser on a light-sensitive material. The material polymerizes and solidifies at the focused spots. As the laser beam moves in three dimensions, it creates a 3D object.

Today's printers, including Nanoscribe's present system, keep the laser beam fixed and move the light-sensitive material along three axes using mechanical stages, which slows down printing. To speed up the process, Nanoscribe's new tool uses a tiny moving mirror to reflect the laser beam at different angles. Thiel says generating multiple light beams with a microlens array could make the process even faster.

The smallest features that can be created using the Nanoscribe printer measure about 30 nanometers, says Julia Greer, professor of materials science at the California Institute of Technology.

"This is very challenging to do, and the Nanoscribe tool excels at it," Greer says. "I don't think there is another company out there that is capable of such precision." Greer's research team uses the first-generation Nanoscribe printer to create and study materials that could be used for catalysts and to make strong, lightweight structures, but she acknowledges that its slowness is a drawback.

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This article originally published at MIT Technology Reviewhere

纳米级别微型3D打印机

Nanoscribe，分拆，从技术的卡尔斯鲁厄理工学院在德国，已开发出桌面三维微型印刷机，它可以创建复杂的微观100倍的速度比目前可能的。
“如果有什么东西花了一小时做，现在需要一分钟，”迈克尔·希尔，在Nanoscribe首席科学官说。
虽然3D打印玩具，iPhone的封面和珠宝的继续抢头条新闻，许多3D打印的影响可能会在一个较小的规模。微米级的印刷已经显示出希望用于制造医疗设备和电子设备。
希尔说，这应该是可能的，甚至更多的未来，加快了公司的微型打印技术。 Nanoscribe计划开始出售它的机器在今年下半年。
印刷微结构特征几百纳米的大小可以是用于制造心脏支架，微针无痛镜头，壁虎粘合剂，份为微流体芯片，而支架用于生长细胞和组织是有用的。另一个重要的应用可以是在电子工业中，其中在芯片上图案形成纳米级特征目前涉及慢，昂贵的技术。三维打印会迅速而廉价地得到聚合物的模板，可以被用来制造金属结构。
到目前为止，3D缩印一直仅用于研究实验室，因为它是相当缓慢的。事实上，世界各地的许多研究实验室使用Nanoscribe的第一代打印机。新的，更快的机器还可以找到商业用途。希尔说，无数医学，生命科学和纳米技术的公司有兴趣在新机。 “我敢肯定，随着我们这个新工具获得更快的吞吐量，它可能有一个产业的突破很快，”他说。
于大多数3D microprinters该技术被称为双光子聚合。它包括聚焦微小，超短脉冲从近红外线激光的感光材料。该材料聚合并固化的聚焦点。由于在三维激光束移动时，它会创建一个3D对象。
当今的打印机，包括Nanoscribe的本系统中，保持激光束的固定和使用机械的阶段，这会降低打印沿着三个轴移动感光材料。为了加快这一进程，Nanoscribe的新工具使用一个微小的移动镜子反射的激光束在不同的角度。泰尔表示产生多个光束的带有微透镜阵列可以使该过程甚至更快。
可以使用Nanoscribe打印机措施约30纳米创建最小的特点，说朱莉娅·格里尔，材料科学在加州技术研究所的教授。
“这是非常具有挑战性的事，和Nanoscribe工具擅长的，”格里尔说。 “我不认为这是另一家公司在那里，能够这样的精确度。” Greer的研究团队采用了第一代Nanoscribe打印机创建并研究可用于催化剂，并作出强有力的，轻型结构材料，但她也承认，它的进展缓慢是一个缺点。
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这篇文章最初发表在麻省理工学院技术Reviewhere