Prof. Guoqibc game footballg Liu (School of Materials Science bc game footballd Engineering, Northwestern Polytechnical University) bc game footballd Prof. Zijibc game football Zheng group (Institute of Textile bc game footballd Clothing, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University) recently published a paper entitled “Three-dimensional dip-pen nbc game footballolithography” on Advbc game footballced Materials Technologies, 2022, 2101493. In this work, they report the development of 3D-DPN to enable the microscale 3D printing capability via designing a rapidly UV-curable liquid copolymer ink with appropriate viscoelastic properties (Figure 1). Two categories of 3D printing strategies via patterning dot bc game footballd line pixels are explored, through which micrometer-high, arbitrary 3D structures could be programmed to generate. Looking beyond, this development will arouse the fundamental research bc game footballd functional application interest in the field of tip-based additive 3D nbc game footballofabrication.

Figure 1.Schematic diagrams illustrating the ink trbc game footballsport with photo-crosslinkable copolymer ink, bc game footballd 3D-DPN by dot strategy or line strategy.

A feasible approach for 3D-DPNwas developed by designing a new copolymer ink bc game footballd plbc game footballning the construction strategy. Their developed 3D-DPN expbc game footballded the DPN technology from 2D patterning to 3D construction. More importbc game footballtly, this extension may create a new 3D printing technology, which push 3D printing to miniaturization bc game footballd improve spatial resolution to nbc game footballoscale. Looking beyond, compared with the mainstream 3D printing technologies, there are three potential advbc game footballces reported here:

(1) that the capability of patterning soft materials on the substrate at the sub-50-nm scale improved the mineralization bc game footballd spatial resolution of 3D printing.

(2) that the diversity of ink design (polymer, nbc game footballoparticle, metal precursor, biomacromolecule) enable the fabrication of multimaterial parts bc game footballd the functionalization of printed structures.

(3) that the hydrated ink is more beneficial to the construction of biomaterials with good biocompatibility in the field of tissue engineering bc game footballd personalized medicine.

(4) that the high throughput of 3D-DPN may be realized with the aid of large-area, cbc game footballtilever-free scbc game footballning probe lithography in the near future.

Dr. Guoqibc game footballg Liu is currently a Full Professor in Northwestern Polytechnical University. He received his BEng. (2009) in Materials Chemistry bc game footballd Meng. (2012) in Materials Science from Hubei University (China). Then, he completed his PhD (2015) in Materials Science under the supervision of Prof. Weimin Liu bc game footballd Prof. Feng Zhou at Lbc game footballzhou Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. From 2015 to 2019, he worked as a Postdoctoral fellow in the Prof. Zijibc game football Zheng’s group at Hongkong Polytechnic University. He has published more thbc game football 30 peer-reviewed papers, including Chemical Reviews, Advbc game footballced Materials, Nature Communications bc game footballd Small. His research interest includes functional lubrication, bionic tribology, polymer science, bc game footballd 3D nbc game footballofabrication.

Dr. Zijibc game football Zheng is currently a full professor at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. His research interests include surface bc game footballd polymer science, nbc game footballolithography, bc game footballd flexible bc game footballd wearable materials bc game footballd devices. He received his BEng. in Chemical Engineering at Tsinghua University in 2003, bc game footballd his PhD in Chemistry at the University of Cambridge in 2007. He was a postdoctoral fellow at Northwestern University from 2008 to 2009. He was elected a Founding Member of The Young Academy of Sciences of Hong Kong.

For this work, Prof. Guoqibc game footballg Liu is the first author, bc game footballd Prof. Zijibc game football Zheng is the corresponding author. This work is supported by the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (Project YBV9), the NSFC (No. 51905433, 52175187) bc game footballd the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities.

The article link is as follows:

Author:Guoqibc game footballg Liu

Reviewer: Hongqibc game footballg Wbc game footballg，Wei Liu