Nano-scale 3DPrinting

Monday 26th December, 2022 - Bruce Sterling

https://phys.org/news/2022-12-atom-lab-explores-nanoscale-3d.html

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Khasanova and her colleagues need the minuscule nozzles to print incredibly tiny three-dimensional metallic structures. This means the nozzles’ openings must be equally tiny—in some cases so small that only a single molecule can squeeze through. “We are trying to take 3D printing to its technological limits,” says Dr. Dmitry Momotenko, who leads the junior research group at the Institute of Chemistry. His goal: “We want to assemble objects atom by atom.”

Numerous applications

Nanoscale 3D printing—in other words 3D printing of objects that are a just few billionths of a meter in size—opens up amazing opportunities, the chemist explains. For metal objects in particular, he can envisage numerous applications in areas such as microelectronics, nanorobotics, sensor and battery technology: “Electroconductive materials are needed for all kinds of applications in these areas, so metals are the perfect solution.”

While 3D printing of plastics has already advanced into these nanoscale dimensions, manufacturing tiny metal objects using 3D technology has proven more difficult….