Holographic Volumetric Additive Manufacturing

Abstract

3D printing has revolutionized the manufacturing of volumetric components and structures in many areas. Different technologies have been developed including light-induced techniques based on the photopolymerization of liquid resins. In particular, a recently introduced method, so-called Tomographic Volumetric AM (VAM), allows the fabrication of mesoscale objects within tens of seconds without the need for support structures. This method works by projecting thousands of amplitude patterns, computed via a reverse tomography algorithm, into a resin from different angles to produce the desired three-dimensional shape when the resin reaches the polymerization threshold. To date, only amplitude modulation of the patterns has been reported. Here, we show that holographic phase modulation unlocks new capabilities for VAM printing. Specifically, the effective light projection efficiency is improved by at least a factor of 10 over amplitude coding; the resolution can reach the light diffraction limit; and phase encoding allows to control ballistic photons in scattering media, which potentially increases the volume of 3D objects that can be printed in opaque and non-absorbing resins. The approach uses CGH to convert phase, encoded on a 2D modulator to the desired intensity projections by light propagation in a photosensitive resin container. We demonstrate the potential of holographic phase coding using simulations and experiments, the latter by implementing a volumetric printer using a DMD, as the 2D phase modulator in a Fourier configuration. Specifically, we use Lee holograms to encode phase onto a binary DMD. Combining tiled holograms with PSF shaping mitigates the speckle noise typically associated with computer-generated holograms and speed-up their computation. We use these holographic projections to fabricate millimetric 3D objects in less than a minute with a resolution down to 164 um.