Crazy small, crazy fast, and crazy fun to watch.
Posted 03.18.2013 at 1:31 pm
6 Comments
About a year ago, we reported on a team using “two-photon lithography” to 3-D print a teeny, tiny racecar in about four minutes. That was insanely fast--printing a racecar might've been a little sight gag--but now another team, using the same process, has printed a similarly small spaceship in less than a single minute.
A company called Nanoscribe GmbH made the 125µm x 81µm x 26.8µm ship, modeled on the Wing Commander videogame franchise. To create it, a laser zapped layers of photoactve liquid resin in just the right spots, and the material hardened in response. This video shows the process in real time.
Besides printing out wee little sculptures, the 3-D printing tech could be useful in creating scaffolding for cells or in other biomedical applications.
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First this is not a space ship. Second, if I was going to use my imagination and say it was a space ship, well then, it is too small to play with in my bath tub? Oye!
Seriously, it may become helpful in microelectronic mechanical biological devices in the future.
Acctually It is a Hellcat V a fictional System class Medium Fighter from the Wing Commander Universe.
Did they focus the light to the proper depth? Usually, a layer is hardened at the surface of the liquid, then the object is lowered so that another layer of liquid is added on top. At this scale, surface tension and viscosity of the liquid would make that impossible. Focusing the light to specific depth in the liquid is the only way I can see this working. Am I wrong?
The 3-D printing tech that I've seen does not use a fluid, but a container of the powder-fine dry media. Other than that, the printing tech is pretty much as you describe, David.
the next step is to make it move
no 5th element references?
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No facts, No response...