Optical characterization of 3D printed PLA and ABS filaments for diffuse optics applications.

Michele Lacerenza,Davide Contini,Caterina Amendola,Rebecca Re,Ileana Pirovano,Xiaowei Zhang,Rinaldo Cubeddu,Alessandro Torricelli,Lorenzo Spinelli

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0253181

Michele Lacerenza, Davide Contini + Show 7 more

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https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0253181

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Abstract

The interest for Fused Deposition Modelling (FDM) in the field of Diffuse Optics (DO) is rapidly increasing. The most widespread FDM materials are polylactic acid (PLA) and acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS), thanks to their low cost and easiness-to-print. This is why, in this study, 3D printed samples of PLA and ABS materials were optically characterized in the range from the UV up to the IR wavelengths, in order to test their possible employment for probe construction in DO applications. To this purpose, measurements with Near Infrared Spectroscopy and Diffuse Correlation Spectroscopy techniques were considered. The results obtained show how the material employed for probe construction can negatively affect the quality of DO measurements.

Highlights

IntroductionDiffuse Optics (DO), is a branch of optics, originally developed in the atmosphere and biomedical fields, which makes use of light in the VIS and NIR spectral range to optically characterize, in terms of absorption and scattering coefficients, turbid media such us: human tissues (e.g. brain for non-invasive assessment of the hemodynamic cortical activation or the oxidative metabolism status) [1], fruits (e.g. for non-destructive maturity assessment) [2], pharmaceutical tablets and wood (e.g. for quality control during production) [3]
Diffuse Optics (DO), is a branch of optics, originally developed in the atmosphere and biomedical fields, which makes use of light in the VIS and NIR spectral range to optically characterize, in terms of absorption and scattering coefficients, turbid media such us: human tissues [1], fruits [2], pharmaceutical tablets and wood [3]
For the polylactic acid (PLA) filaments the extruder temperature was set to 205 ̊C and printing speed to 3800 mm/min, whereas for acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) filament the extruder temperature was raised to 250 ̊C, the bed was heated up to 80 ̊C, and printing speed was reduced to 2800 mm/min

Summary

Introduction

Diffuse Optics (DO), is a branch of optics, originally developed in the atmosphere and biomedical fields, which makes use of light in the VIS and NIR spectral range to optically characterize, in terms of absorption and scattering coefficients, turbid media such us: human tissues (e.g. brain for non-invasive assessment of the hemodynamic cortical activation or the oxidative metabolism status) [1], fruits (e.g. for non-destructive maturity assessment) [2], pharmaceutical tablets and wood (e.g. for quality control during production) [3]. In DO measurements light is typically delivered to the sample by optical fiber (injection fiber) and diffusely remitted photons are collected by another optical fiber (collection fiber) set at a relative distance of few centimetres. Injection and collection fibers are usually hosted in a probe, a housing which must guarantee good adhesion with the sample, and ambient light shielding. With the advent of the Fused Deposition Modelling (FDM) technology, the use of a 3D filament printer for building a custom probe for each DO instrument and application is significantly increased [4,5,6,7,8]. In FDM a thermoplastic polymer, in the form of a filament, is extruded on a plate adding layer by layer slices of fused filament.

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