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Materials Science in Additive Manufacturing Additive manufacturing of active optics

machinability, and tunable properties. They can be easily resonance, and tunable refractive indices, making them
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molded, cast, or additively manufactured into intricate essential for plasmonic and photonic applications. In
3D structures, making them ideal for producing complex 3D-printed optics, metal-polymer nanocomposites
optical components such as lenses, filters, microresonators, are often used to enhance light-emission properties by
and gratings. manipulating the interaction between incident light and

By modifying the chemical composition of polymers or metallic nanostructures. 38,49
doping them with specific additives, their optical properties, Recent developments in laser‑assisted additive
such as refractive index and photoluminescence, can be manufacturing have enabled the fabrication of metal
customized. Polymers doped with QDs, UCNPs or other nanostructures with high precision. With the printed
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organic functional molecules provide highly tunable metal–organic frameworks, several 3D-printable
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emission properties suitable for use in micro-lasers, LEDs, composite objects for converting UV into warm white light
and photonic devices. For instance, polymers integrated emission are designed. Complex 3D architectures can be
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with UCNPs can absorb low‑energy photons and emit printed using fully dense titanium dioxide (TiO ) with a
2
higher-energy visible photons, making them highly high refractive index and nanosized critical dimensions,
effective in applications requiring wavelength conversion. suitable for 3D micro-electro-mechanical systems, micro-
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In addition, multi‑photon polymerization (MPP) optics, and prototyping of 3D dielectric PhCs (Figure 6A).
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techniques, combined with UCNPs, enable high‑resolution Moreover, the creation of plasmonic metasurfaces that
3D printing with tunable feature sizes, expanding the scope support bound states in the continuum can enhance the
of functional polymer-based optics. Figure 5A shows that spontaneous emission of QDs. Such metal-based systems
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laser direct writing via NIR light‑induced polymerization of have been particularly useful in applications requiring
photocurable compositions containing UCNPs can realize precise control of light, such as plasmonic sensors,
high 3D-resolution polymerization. Ink-jet printing photonic crystals, and infrared light-emitting devices 38,49
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or 2PP can realize the QDs‑based polymerization, with (Figure 6B and C).
various applications such as fiber sensor and 3D hidden
cryptographic image 45-47 (Figure 5B). Moreover, full-color 3.3. Ceramics and glass for high-performance 3D
laser displays can be achieved based on organic printed optics
microlaser arrays (Figure 5C). Ceramics and glasses offer superior thermal stability, high
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optical transparency, and resistance to environmental
3.2. Metals in 3D-printed optics degradation, making them ideal for high-power light-
Metals such as silver, gold, and titanium have unique emitting devices. Materials like Yttrium Aluminum Garnet
optical properties, including high reflectivity, plasmonic (YAG):Nd, YAG:Yb, YAG:Ce, and Lutetium Aluminum

A B

C

Figure 5. Polymers for 3D printing of active optics. (A) 3D‑resolution polymerization through doped UCNPs. Adapted with permission from Rocheva
et al. (Copyright © 2018, Rocheva et al.). (B) Ink-jet printing of QDs nanopixels. Adapted with permission from Bae et al. (Copyright © 2020, American
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Chemical Society). (C) Organic printed microlaser arrays for displays. Adapted with permission from Zhao et al. (Copyright © 2019, Zhao et al.)
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Abbreviations: CCD: Charge‑coupled device; LED: Light‑emitting diode; QD: Quantum dot; UCNP: Up‑conversion nanoparticle
Volume 3 Issue 4 (2024) 7 doi: 10.36922/msam.5748