High-resolution tomographic volumetric additive manufacturing

In tomographic volumetric additive manufacturing, an entire three-dimensional object is simultaneously solidified by irradiating a liquid photopolymer volume from multiple angles with dynamic light patterns. Though tomographic additive manufacturing has the potential to produce complex parts with a higher throughput and a wider range of printable materials than layer-by-layer additive manufacturing, its resolution currently remains limited to 300 μm. Here, we show that a low-étendue illumination system enables the production of high-resolution features. We further demonstrate an integrated feedback system to accurately control the photopolymerization kinetics over the entire build volume and improve the geometric fidelity of the object solidification. Hard and soft centimeter-scale parts are produced in less than 30 seconds with 80 µm positive and 500 µm negative features, thus demonstrating that tomographic additive manufacturing is potentially suitable for the ultra-fast fabrication of advanced and functional constructs.

Damien Loterie, Paul Delrot, Christophe Moser