LIFT 3D Printing into Patterned Substrate Recesses
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing 3D printing methods face challenges in achieving desired surface quality due to the deposition of successive layers on a flat surface, making it difficult to obtain high-quality three-dimensional structures.
Innovation Solution
The method involves printing into a patterned substrate that serves as a mold, where droplets of fluid are injected into recesses and hardened, with the substrate later removed, allowing for precise control of surface quality and the use of LIFT or inkjet techniques to eject materials, including metals and polymers, which can be thermally or photonically cured.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Manufacturing precision
If successive layers are deposited on a flat surface using conventional 3D printing methods, then the structure is built up layer by layer, but the surface quality deteriorates and high-quality three-dimensional structures cannot be obtained
Solution Approach 1:
The patent inverts the conventional 3D printing approach by instead of building up layers on a flat surface, it deposits material into recesses formed in a substrate. This inversion allows the substrate to define the final surface quality, eliminating the surface quality problems inherent in layer-by-layer deposition on flat surfaces.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces a substrate with patterned recesses as an intermediary mold that defines the final surface geometry. This substrate acts as a mediator between the deposition process and the final structure, allowing high-quality surfaces to be achieved by transferring the substrate's pre-formed recess patterns to the deposited material.
2Productivity
If LIFT or inkjet techniques are used to eject materials, then rapid and economical production is enabled, but control of surface properties becomes challenging
Solution Approach 1:
The substrate with patterned recesses serves as an intermediary mold that defines and controls the surface properties of the deposited material. By forming material into the pre-defined recesses, the substrate mold ensures precise surface geometry control while maintaining the rapid deposition capabilities of LIFT or inkjet techniques.
Solution Approach 2:
The substrate is pre-patterned with recesses before material deposition, establishing the desired surface geometry in advance. This preliminary action of creating the mold structure beforehand allows the rapid deposition process to simply fill the predefined spaces, ensuring both speed and surface quality control.
3Ease of manufacture
If material is deposited layer by layer on a flat surface, then the printing process is simple, but complex shapes including sharp corners are not readily achievable
Solution Approach 1:
The substrate with patterned recesses acts as an intermediary mold that defines complex three-dimensional shapes including sharp corners. The simple deposition process of filling these pre-formed recesses transfers the substrate's complex geometry to the deposited material, achieving shape complexity without complicating the deposition process itself.
Solution Approach 2:
Instead of trying to build complex shapes through sequential layer deposition, the patent inverts the approach by pre-forming the complex shape as recesses in a substrate. The deposition process then simply fills these inverted templates, making complex shape fabrication as simple as material filling.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
This approach enables the rapid and economical production of high-quality small parts with fine surface finishes and complex shapes, including sharp corners, that are not readily achievable with conventional methods, with the option for additional surface treatments to enhance environmental compatibility and material properties.
Implementation Method 1
LIFT, laser photons provide the driving force to catapult a small volume of material from a donor film toward an acceptor substrate. The incident laser beam, in other words, propagates through the transparent carrier before the photons are absorbed by the inner surface of the film.
Implementation Method 2
droplets of fluid are injected into recesses and hardened, with the substrate later removed
Implementation Method 3
which can be thermally or photonically cured
Data Source
Figure 1
Figure 2A~2C
Figure 3A~3B
AI summary
A method for fabrication includes providing a substrate having an upper surface with pattern of one or more recesses formed therein. A laser beam is directed to impinge on a donor film so as to eject droplets of a fluid from the donor film by laser- induced forward transfer (LIFT) into the one or more recesses. The fluid hardens within the one or more recesses to form a solid piece having a shape defined by the one or more recesses. The substrate is removed from the solid piece. In some embodiments, the recesses are coated with a thin-film layer before ejecting the droplets into the recesses, such that the thin-film layer remains as an outer surface of the solid piece after removing the substrate