Three-dimensional printing of silica glass with sub-micrometer resolution.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 37280208.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-023-38996-3 and PMC identifier 10244462.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Silica glass is a high-performance material used in many applications such as lenses, glassware, and fibers. However, modern additive manufacturing of micro-scale silica glass structures requires sintering of 3D-printed silica-nanoparticle-loaded composites at ~1200 °C, which causes substantial structural shrinkage and limits the choice of substrate materials. Here, 3D printing of solid silica glass with sub-micrometer resolution is demonstrated without the need of a sintering step. This is achieved by locally crosslinking hydrogen silsesquioxane to silica glass using nonlinear absorption of sub-picosecond laser pulses. The as-printed glass is optically transparent but shows a high ratio of 4-membered silicon-oxygen rings and photoluminescence. Optional annealing at 900 °C makes the glass indistinguishable from fused silica. The utility of the approach is demonstrated by 3D printing an optical microtoroid resonator, a luminescence source, and a suspended plate on an optical-fiber tip. This approach enables promising applications in fields such as photonics, medicine, and quantum-optics.