Additive Manufacturing (AM)

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    Nanoscribe – Metamaterials With a Twist and Security Through 3D Printed Microstructures

    Image courtesy of Nanoscribe

    By Nanoscribe – News and Reviews – January 2018

    Metamaterials With a Twist
    In ordinary continuum mechanics, squeezing an elastic object can cause it to deform in different manners, e.g. bulging, compressing or bending. Previously inaccessible, a new human-made metamaterial deforms with a twist under strain. Highlighted on the cover of the Science Magazine, our customers at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and the Université de Bourgogne Franche-Comté have presented 3D mechanical metamaterials that show twists under axial compression.

    Towers of up to 500 chiral cubic structures rotated around their axis under load. Achiral structures do not exhibit this behavior. (T.Frenzel/KIT)
    Towers of up to 500 chiral cubic structures rotated around their axis under load. Achiral structures do not exhibit this behavior. (T.Frenzel/KIT)

    The researchers first calculated a metamaterial design consisting of struts and rings connected in a very specific manner. Then, they used Nanoscribe’s Photonic Professional GT to fabricate the metamaterial with different design parameters by 3D printing. As predicted, this chiral mechanical metamaterial responded to compression by twisting itself.

    Read the full paper here: Three-dimensional mechanical metamaterials with a twist

    Security Through 3D Printed Microstructures
    Researchers from the group of Prof. Dr. Martin Wegener at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) and the company ZEISS have successfully printed fluorescent 3D structures by means of Nanoscribe’s Photonic Professional GT.

    They produced fluorescent microstructures with approximately 100 micrometers length from a total of three materials: one nonfluorescent and two fluorescent photoresists (see image). Specifically, semiconductor quantum dots that fluoresce in different colors were printed onto the non-fluorescent 3D cross-grid scaffold. This way, fluorescent markers can be arranged freely in all three dimensions. Hence, one single security structure enables many test images to be created one above the other within the structure.

    Three-dimensional fluorescent safety features. (a) 3D reconstruction from slices with a confocal fluorescence laser microscope. (b) Individual z-slices of the structure in (a) for different structure depths z. (F. Mayer, M. Wegener, Karlsruhe Institute for Technology)
    Three-dimensional fluorescent safety features. (a) 3D reconstruction from slices with a confocal fluorescence laser microscope. (b) Individual z-slices of the structure in (a) for different structure depths z. (F. Mayer, M. Wegener, Karlsruhe Institute for Technology)

    Each image can then be read out layer by layer using a confocal fluorescence laser scanning microscope. Thus, these security features are not only individually structured, but also very complex in their fabrication, making it difficult for counterfeiters to copy them.

    Read more in the publication: 3D Fluorescence-Based Security Features by 3D Laser Lithography

    BiOS and Photonics West – Meet Us!
    Additive manufacturing on the microscale helps to create precise, complex and individualized 3D micro-devices to address biomedical challenges. Our customers’ published work on micro scaffolds for cell regeneration, implants for nerve stimulation, and micromotors for assisted fertilization are few of the many examples in this field.

    We invite you to meet us personally at BiOS (booth 8544) and Photonics West (booth 4368) in San Francisco (CA, USA) from January 27 – February 2, 2018. A list of talks given by users of Nanoscribe systems can be found here.

    Repurposed with permission from Nanoscribe GmbH

    Source: Nanoscribe GmbH

     

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