In recent years 3D printing, also known as additive
manufacturing, has established itself as a promising new
manufacturing process for a wide variety of components. Dr. Dmitry
Momotenko, a chemist at the University of Oldenburg, has now
succeeded in fabricating ultrasmall metal objects using a new 3D
printing technique. In a paper published together with a team of
researchers from ETH Zurich (Switzerland) and Nanyang Technological
University (Singapore) in the scientific journal Nano Letters, he
reports that the technique has potential applications in
microelectronics, sensor technology and battery technology. The
team has developed an electrochemical technique that can be used to
make objects out of copper just 25 billionths of a meter
(equivalent to 25 nanometres) in diameter. For comparison, a human
hair is about 3000 times thicker than the filigree
nanostructures.
