First published in Popular Science (March 18, 2013) by Colin Lecher ☛ About a year ago, we reported on a team using “two-photon lithography” to 3D-print a teeny, tiny racecar in about four minutes. That was insanely fast — printing a racecar might’ve been a little sight gag — but now another team, using the same process, has printed a similarly small spaceship in less than a single minute. A company called Nanoscribe GmbH made the 125µm x 81µm x 26.8µm ship, modeled on the Wing Commander videogame franchise. To create it, a laser zapped layers of photoactve liquid resin in just the right spots, and the material hardened in response. This video shows the process in real time. Besides printing out wee little sculptures, the 3-D printing tech could be useful in creating scaffolding for cells or in other biomedical applications.
