Advances in 3D Printing for Miniaturized Instruments

Dear Colleagues,

3D printing encompasses bottom-up additive manufacturing techniques that create, layer by layer, freeform objects described by a computer-aided design (CAD) model. 3D printing has unique advantages over traditional subtracting manufacturing methods; for example, 3D printing can create objects with complex geometry; customize each printed object; and significantly reduce waste, prototyping time, and cost. In recent years, 3D printing has made possible the demonstration of miniaturized systems that outperform counterparts made in a cleanroom, as well as the novel designs that are challenging or unfeasible to construct with standard microfabrication methods due to materials, geometry, or integration issues.

Some of the most exciting work in 3D printing explores monolithically creating 3D, finely featured systems made of a plurality of materials and structures. This is a bio-inspired approach where the different structures accomplish efficiently one or more tasks by optimizing the materials they are made, their geometries, and their interfacing with the other structures of the system. Research in this topic encompasses (i) the development of novel printable materials to tailor transducing, mechanical, or chemical properties; (ii) the improvement of 3D printing technology to resolve smaller voxels and yield multi-material prints; and (iii) the demonstration of designs that surpass counterparts made with cleanroom and other fabrication technologies. In some cases, the demonstration of these novel designs requires the combination of multiple 3D printing methods, optimized to created certain structures in specific materials, that are sequentially conducted to attain a monolithic, fully 3D printed system.

In this call, we request manuscripts that report original work on fully 3D printed miniaturized instruments, that is, miniaturized micro- and nano-enabled systems for sensing and actuation, including but not limited to chemical sensors for low-power/low false-positive sensing, piezoelectric resonators, long-stroke actuators, pumps for liquids and gases, electron sources, mass spectrometers, energy harvesters, implantable devices, and magnetics.

Dr. Luis Fernando Velásquez-García
Guest Editor

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• 3D printed micro and nanosystems
• multi-material printing
• sensors
• actuators
• transduction