Fast‑Printing 3D Objects in Less Than a Second

A Chinese research team has made 3-D printing much quicker and still detailed.

Breakthrough in Technology

Instead of adding layers one by one, they use holographic light that fills a whole volume at once. The system shines light from many angles, like a projector, and shapes the resin inside a container instantly.

Advantages of the New Method

• No moving parts or waiting for layers to set are needed, which saves time and keeps precision.
• The new method can create millimeter‑size parts in only 0.6 seconds, while keeping tiny details as small as 12 micrometers—about one‑fifth the width of a human hair.
• This speed comes from rotating a light source instead of turning the liquid, and from fine‑tuning each hologram to keep sharpness across a 1-centimeter depth.

Performance Metrics

Tests show the printer can build 333 cubic millimeters every second, even with materials that flow or have different thicknesses.

Potential Applications

• Small electronics
• Optical chips
• Flexible devices
• Realistic tissue models in medicine
• Tiny robots or curved circuits in robotics

Publication

The research was published in Nature on February 12, showing how the new approach could change many industries.