Based on the LiquidGlass process formulation, modifications will be developed which allow generating optical glasses with adjustable optical properties such as the index of refraction which will be made adjustable in a range of = 1.46 to = 1.50. “During this project the consortium will develop LiquidGlass formulations which can be structured via Nanoscribe’s 2PP process as well as the required process conditions, parameters and (potentially) instrumental adaptations. In collaboration with Nanoscribe and Glassomer, the OptoGlass3D project will develop specific materials for 2PP technology and will then look to commercialize the material. Images courtesy of KIT and NeptunLab, Glassomer, Nanoscribe This liquid glass material, a nanocomposite containing amorphous silica material can be used to 3D print almost any kind of object in glass (with properties exactly as that of commercial fused silica glass) with feature resolution in the tens of micrometers and surface roughness within a few nanometers.
Soon, the company won the Formnext 2019 Start-Up Challenge, among a number of awards for its innovation in 3D printing glass. Their research, published in Nature, was led by Frederik Kotz and Bastian Rapp, who founded Glassomer GmbH in 2018 to produce and supply Glassomers, a novel range of materials that can be used by any off-the-shelf SLA 3D printer, as well as the “Liquid Glass” method to process 3D printed fused silica glass like polymer. By using a photocurable polymer infused with a glass nanopowder ink as the material, this method could 3D print at room temperature and produce objects with optical, surface, and compositional properties comparable to commercial fused silica glass. In 2017, researchers at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) developed a sterelithography (SLA) method to 3D print glass, at high resolution, a few tens of micrometers, and possibly even 150-500 nanometers (just ten times the size of silica particles).
ATTRACT is in turn funded by the EU Horizon 2020 program, and so far has provided grants to 170 projects focused in breakthrough innovation. The OptoGlass3D project is funded with a one-year €100,000 grant from ATTRACT, a collaborative initiative bringing together the research, industry and investment communities in Europe to develop the next-generation of sensing and imaging solutions, by streamlining breakthrough innovation, and using new, open innovation models at scale.
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