A team led by Professor Im-Doo Jeong at UNIST has developed a volumetric 3D printing technology capable of continuously fabricating three-dimensional microstructures in approximately 60-second intervals. This technology cures the entire shape at once inside a droplet, rather than the conventional layer-by-layer stacking method.

UNIST announced on April 29 that a research team led by Professor Im-Doo Jeong of the Department of Mechanical Engineering had developed 'Dispensing Volumetric Additive Manufacturing (DVAM)' technology. The research results were published online in the international journal Advanced Functional Materials on March 21.

DVAM utilizes a drop of photocurable resin formed at the tip of a glass pipette as a printing space. The research team implemented a continuous process by curing a structure by irradiating a rotating droplet with a calculated light pattern, then ejecting the completed structure onto a substrate and supplying the next droplet.

CAL, one of the existing volumetric 3D printing methods, had limitations in continuous production because it required a container for the resin, a medium for correcting the refractive index, and a process for separating the printed material. The research team reduced this process by using the droplet itself as a temporary printing space, and corrected the problem of light refraction occurring in curved droplets using AI-based droplet contour recognition and backlight tracking calculations.

The research team was confirmed to have produced 10 different structures, including the Eiffel Tower, letter shapes, and grid structures, in succession within about 10 minutes. Some reports explained that the single printing time was between 45 and 75 seconds, and the non-printing time was within a few seconds.

This study is evaluated as an approach to increasing fabrication speed and continuous productivity in micro 3D printing. However, as the technology is still in the research phase, further verification is required regarding its actual industrial application scope and mass production stability.