3D Printing of Transparent Glasses

Abstract

AbstractGlasses have shaped the field of optics and photonics like no other material—enabling numerous sensing and imaging systems, optical data transfer, and laser systems. Transparent silicate glasses are the material of choice for high-performance optical components as they combine high optical transparency with high thermal, chemical, and mechanical stability. However, precision shaping of glasses is notoriously difficult and mainly limited to grinding and polishing processes for macroscopic objects and hazardous etching processes for the fabrication of microstructures. In recent years, considerable efforts have been made to making glasses accessible to the 3D printing revolution of the twenty-first century. When silicate glasses entered the field of 3D printing, two major directions came up—direct 3D printing of low melting glasses at high temperatures and indirect glass printing of glass precursors using technologies borrowed from the techniques of polymer 3D printing. These precursors can be printed at room temperature and turned into transparent glass in a subsequent heat treatment. In this chapter, we outline the latest developments of 3D printing of transparent silicate glasses.KeywordsAdditive manufacturing3D printingFused silica glassMulticomponent glassNanocompositesSol-gelGlassomerStereolithographyDirect ink writingAdvanced manufacturing