Tech Radar considers the future of nano 3D printing. Indeed, a miniature replica of Michelangelo’s statue of David has been 3D printed to demonstrate the technology’s future.
While the original statue of David stands at over 5 meters in height, this 3D printed recreation is tiny – only 1mm tall. And yet, it loses none of the piece’s clarity or precision. This stunning miniature was developed by researchers at ETH Zurich University, who “used a 3D printing method invented by Giorgio Ercolano, R&D process engineer at Exaddon.”
Additionally, the team “also created a second model of the statue, which was 10 times smaller (around 0.1mm), although it didn’t have nearly the same resolution and detailing.”
These miniature statues “were fashioned out of copper and printed in one single seamless process, with no requirement for supports or templates during printing…the larger David replica took some 30 hours to print, but the incredibly minuscule version took only 20 minutes to produce.”
The really interesting thing, though, is that these miniature Davids “are just a vehicle to highlight the potential of this technology, which could have major ramifications in the wider electronics and computing industry.”
“Exaddon reckons its CERES additive micro-manufacturing system could be used by manufacturers to connect computer chips together, or perform precise repairs on microelectronics systems.”
Giorgio Ercolano concludes: “our deep understanding of the printing process has led to a new way of processing the 3D computer model of the statue and then converting it into machine code. This is what makes the new David statue so extraordinary. This object has been sliced from an open source CAD file and afterwards was sent directly to the printer. This slicing method enables an entirely new way to print designs with the CERES additive micro-manufacturing system.”
Image and Quotes Courtesy of Tech Radar
Replicator World 