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

Ziyong Li; Yanwen Jia; Ke Duan; Ran Xiao; Jingyu Qiao; Shuyu Liang; Shixiang Wang; Juzheng Chen; Hao Wu; Yang Lu; Xiewen Wen

doi:10.1038/s41467-024-46929-x

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

Nat Commun. 2024 Mar 27;15(1):2689. doi: 10.1038/s41467-024-46929-x.

Authors

Ziyong Li^{1

2}, Yanwen Jia^{1

2

3}, Ke Duan^{1

2

4}, Ran Xiao^{1

2}, Jingyu Qiao^{1

2}, Shuyu Liang^{1

2}, Shixiang Wang^{5

6}, Juzheng Chen^{1

2}, Hao Wu^{1

2}, Yang Lu^{7

8}, Xiewen Wen^{9

10}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Mechanical Engineering, City University of Hong Kong, Kowloon, Hong Kong, SAR, China.
² Nano-Manufacturing Laboratory (NML), Shenzhen Research Institute of City University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, 518057, China.
³ Department of Chemistry, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, 518055, China.
⁴ Department of Material Science and Engineering, College of Aerospace Science and Engineering, National University of Defense Technology, Changsha, 410073, China.
⁵ State Key Laboratory of Ultra-precision Machining Technology, Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Kowloon, Hong Kong, SAR, China.
⁶ Research Institute for Advanced Manufacturing, Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Kowloon, Hong Kong, SAR, China.
⁷ Nano-Manufacturing Laboratory (NML), Shenzhen Research Institute of City University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, 518057, China. [email protected].
⁸ Department of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong, SAR, China. [email protected].
⁹ State Key Laboratory of Ultra-precision Machining Technology, Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Kowloon, Hong Kong, SAR, China. [email protected].
¹⁰ Research Institute for Advanced Manufacturing, Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Kowloon, Hong Kong, SAR, China. [email protected].

Abstract

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 μm³ to 0.8 × 0.8 × 0.5 μm³. 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.

Abstract

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