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Materials Science in Additive Manufacturing Additive manufacturing of active optics

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Figure 13. Additive manufacturing of various metasurfaces. (A) Printing of metasurfaces for customized optical caustics. Adapted with permission from
Zhou et al. (Copyright © 2024, Zhou et al.). (B) Structural colors based on resonant laser printing. Adapted with permission from Zhu et al. (Copyright
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© 2017, Zhu et al.)
to some other techniques, and the potential degradation 5.2. DLP
of photopolymers over time. Ongoing research focuses DLP is another photopolymerization‑based technique that
on developing hybrid resins with enhanced thermal and uses a digital light projector to cure a photopolymer resin
mechanical properties, as well as UV-curable polymers layer‑by‑layer. DLP provides high resolution and speed,
designed to improve long-term stability and resistance to making it ideal for fabricating optical components with
environmental factors. 92-94 Advances in high-intensity UV intricate geometries. In the context of light-emitting 3D
lasers and parallel curing methods are also being explored optics, DLP has been utilized to produce hybrid optical
to reduce fabrication time, while computational models
and artificial intelligence-driven algorithms are optimizing components that incorporate both inorganic and organic
layer curing dynamics to ensure consistent quality even materials, providing tunable optical properties.
for complex geometries. 95,96 These efforts aim to expand One example is the use of inorganic‑organic hybrid
SLA’s applicability in demanding fields such as biomedical polymers to print optical elements such as microlenses
devices and high-precision optics. and gratings. DLP offers excellent material versatility
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Volume 3 Issue 4 (2024) 15 doi: 10.36922/msam.5748