Recent research from the ZAP lab titled “Rapid High-Resolution Visible Light 3D Printing” has been published in ACS Central Science and highlighted in a “First Reactions” report by Estabrook and Sletten at UCLA. In this paper, Page and coworkers developed liquid resins that rapidly convert to solids upon exposure to visible light across the spectrum for low energy projection based 3D printing (ex/ blue-, green-, and red-light printed longhorns circling a quarter for reference to the right). For the first time visible light 3D printing is possible with competitive speed (45 mm/h), resolution (< 100 μm), and mechanical uniformity compared to contemporary state-of-the-art UV/violet methods. This opens an avenue towards less expensive and invasive additive manufacturing to enable bio-, composite-, and multimaterial-printing for tissue engineering, structural plastics, and soft robotics. The group is excited to build upon this research to explore the fabrication of cell-laden hydrogels, fiber reinforced objects, and hard/soft joints from wavelength-selective light driven chemistry.
Faculty Member
- Zachariah Page
Postdoctoral Scholar
- Dowon Ahn
Graduate Student Researcher
- Lynn M. Stevens
Undergraduate Student Researcher
- Kevin Zhou
