Dear readers,
With the launch of e-newsletter CUHK in Focus, CUHKUPDates has retired and this site will no longer be updated. To stay abreast of the University’s latest news, please go to https://focus.cuhk.edu.hk. Thank you.

News

Invention Oscar for Nano 3D Printing

Prof. Chen Shih-chi and his team at the Department of Mechanical and Automation Engineering have been presented the influential 2018 R&D 100 Award, famously hailed ‘The Oscar of Invention’ for developing the Digital Holography-based 3D Nano-Builder. Pushing the envelope of single-point scanning in traditional 3D printing, the Nano-Builder employs revolutionary random-access scanning that allows tens of laser foci to simultaneously write structures at high speed. The nano-prototyping is most suited for applications in research and development, such as printing photonic, robotic, metamaterials, micro-scaffolds and drug delivery devices. As the focal point can be moved to anywhere in space, complex overhanging structures can be printed without supporting structures. Moreover, the modular design of the Nano-Builder enables its turning into a two-photon excitation microscope, whose femtosecond lasers can stimulate cells, such as that in mouse brains or zebrafish, with precision and accelerate discoveries in medicine and science.

This article was originally published in No. 531, Newsletter in Jan 2019.