Small Scale 3D printing
Small-scale additive manufacturing holds the potential to revolutionize 3D micromanufacturing, as current fabrication techniques impose significant geometrical constraints and rely on toxic chemicals. We have recently introduced a novel small scale AM technique, termed electrohydrodynamic redox printing (EHD-RP), an additive manufacturing technique with submicron resolution.
We currently focus our work on three different areas:
Processing conditions dictate the materials microstructure/chemistry and ultimately its properties. The study of this complex relationship accounts for an important part of our research which, on one hand, leads us to the fundamental principles of EHD-RP and, on the other hand, unveil new opportunities in materials design.
EHD-RP offers unique opportunities in the manufacturing of micro-devices. To demonstrate the capabilities of the method, we are investigating the fabrication of surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) sensors. By depositing an Ag alloy and selectively removing the less noble element by dealloying, we fabricate nano-porous 3D Ag structures with variable pore sizes. Such nano-porous Ag structures are known to yield high SERS enhancement factors. Our work aims to understand how different geometries and porosities impact the SERS detection capabilities. The manufacturing flexibility of EHD-RP would allow the incorporation of such sensor elements into microfluidic devices.
A key challenge of small-scale AM is the direct incorporation of different electronic materials, i.e. various metals, semiconductors and insulators, while maintaining a device-grade quality of materials. We are actively working on expanding the range of materials that can be deposited and investigate multi-material deposition. The fabrication of spatially heterogeneous multi-material structures enables a chemical design of 3D devices, with tuning of the properties at the single-voxel level.
Student Projects
If you are interested in any of these topics for your thesis or semester project, check out our protected pageStudent Projects. In case you are not enrolled at ETHZ, please contact or .