Abstract
Additive manufacturing is well established for plastics and metals, and it gets more and more implemented in a variety of industrial processes. Beside these well-established material platforms, additive manufacturing processes are highly interesting for ceramics, especially regarding resource conservation and for the production of complex three-dimensional shapes and structures with specific feature sizes in the µm and mm range with high accuracy. The usage of ceramics in 3D printing is, however, just at the beginning of a technical implementation in a continuously and fast rising field of research and development. The flexible fabrication of highly complex and precise 3D structures by means of light-induced photopolymerization that are difficult to realize using traditional ceramic fabrication methods such as casting and machining is of high importance. Generally, slurry-based ceramic 3D printing technologies involve liquid or semi-liquid polymeric systems dispersed with ceramic particles as feedstock (inks or pastes), depending on the solid loading and viscosity of the system. This paper includes all types of photo-curable polymer-ceramic-mixtures (feedstock), while demonstrating our own work on 3D printed alumina toughened zirconia based ceramic slurries with light induced polymerization on the basis of two-photon absorption (TPA) for the first time. As a proven exemplary on cuboids with varying edge length and double pyramids in the µm-range we state that real 3D micro-stereolithographic fabrication of ceramic products will be generally possible in the near future by means of TPA. This technology enables the fabrication of 3D structures with high accuracy in comparison to ceramic technologies that apply single-photon excitation. In sum, our work is intended to contribute to the fundamental development of this technology for the representation of oxide-ceramic components (proof-of-principle) and helps to exploit the high potential of additive processes in the field of bio-ceramics in the medium to long-term future.
Highlights
Complex technical ceramics are increasingly required in almost every field of application, including many industrial areas such as medical technology
Basic aspects of the photo-chemical micro- and nano-lithography using two-photon absorption (TPA) for ceramic slurries as shown in this paper on three dimensional objects like cuboids and pyramids in the μm-range could be clarified by means of the experiments described in this paper
Our work has made an important contribution to the development of photochemical microlithography by means of TPA for the preparation of oxide ceramic 3D structures
Summary
Complex technical ceramics are increasingly required in almost every field of application, including many industrial areas such as medical technology. Even in small series, any application for complex shapes in the μm-up to the cm-range would be addressable [3] In this context, several excellent reviews on additive manufacturing (AM) and 3D printing of ceramics have been recently published by e.g., Deckers et al [4], Halloran et al [5], and Chen et al [6]. Several excellent reviews on additive manufacturing (AM) and 3D printing of ceramics have been recently published by e.g., Deckers et al [4], Halloran et al [5], and Chen et al [6] They all conclude that a variety of highly innovative technologies currently exists to additive fabrication to produce ceramic parts. All these currently existing 3D printing technologies for ceramics can be mainly divided into powder- and suspension-based technologies [2], while Chen et al [6] categorize bulk solid-based technologies separately
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