U. research group creates first LED 3D printer

After more than two years and an estimated $20,000, a research group in the mechanical engineering department has created the first 3D printer capable of printing LED lights.

The venture was led by researcher Yong Lin Kong and Ian Tamargo ’14, and was sponsored by the Air Force of Scientific Research and the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency.

The research group McAlpine, led by mechanical and aerospace engineering professor Michael McAlpine,made a breakthroughmore than a year ago after it successfully printed 3D bionic ears, devices that can hear sound frequencies beyond the capacity of a human ear, out of bovine cells.

According to the team's website, the 10-person group explores “interweaving biology and nanomaterials” that “could enable the creation of bionic devices, possessing unique geometric, properties and functionalities for a variety of fundamental and applied research directions”.

With this new 3D printing technology, the lab has shown the capability of printing “emissive semi-conducting inorganic nanoparticles, elastomeric matrix, organic polymers as charge transport laters, solid and liquid metal leads and a UV-adhesive transparent substrate layer cube of encapsulated LEDs," according to their report.

“What we have presented here is an additional method to integrate electronics that can take into consideration the three-dimensional geometry of an object," Kong explained.

He added that previously only simple mechanical structures were able to be printed using 3D technology and that McAlpine has presented the first example of the printing of a fully functional electronic device. Prior to McAlpine's innovative customization, 3D printing had been limited to use of specific plastics and few biological materials.

Tamargo explained that a 3D printer functions like a topographical map in which individual layers, like those denoting hills and mountains on a map and that are decreasing in size, are combined to print to the total object.

Tamargo joined the project as an undergraduate in the chemistry department and included his findings in the lab to write his junior papers and his thesis entitled"Fabrication and Characterization of Three-Dimensionally-Printed Light-Emitting Diodes."

He said that the scientific implications of this novel printing technology could include devices such as a printed contact lens with visual displays in it.

“But," Tamargo added, “these devices are way in the future.”

Representatives from the Air Force of Science Research were unavailable for comment.