United States and Germany have developed a new 3D printing process that can produce nano-sized quartz glass products at relatively low temperatures, which is expected to print optical glass components directly on semiconductor chips.
Micron and nanoscale glass structures have a wide range of applications in microelectronic devices. Previous processes require sintering, but because the sintering temperature exceeds 1100 degrees Celsius, which is higher than melting point of many semiconductor materials, it is impossible to directly process glass components on chips or circuits.
The new process was jointly developed by the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany and the University of California, Irvine in the United States. The researchers used an "organic-inorganic hybrid" material, cage polysilsesquioxane (POSS), as the printing raw material. The core of the POSS molecule is an inorganic "cage" composed of silicon atoms and oxygen atoms. There are some organic functional groups connected on the outside. A functional group is an atom or group of atoms that determines the chemical properties of an organic compound.
The team used two-photon polymerization 3D printing technology to cross-link raw material molecules to form 3D nanostructures, and then heated them to 650 degrees Celsius in the air to discharge organic components and melt inorganic components to form quartz glass.
Using this process, the researchers printed several different nano-glass structures, including "firewood stacks" and "scaffolding" stacked by nano-columns, paraboloid-shaped lenses, and cylinders with patterns on the outside and inside. These glass structures not only have precise structure, but also have excellent optical and mechanical properties, and strong resistance to high temperature and chemical substances. Relevant papers were published in the American Journal of Science.
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