Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • RESEARCH HIGHLIGHT

3D printing tackles tricky materials with help from tiny crystals

Technique that uses a molecular ‘glue’ allows 3D printing to make objects from challenging materials such as semiconductors.
Fluorescent “Loong” pattern composed of pixels of red- and blue-emitting QDs, displaying the merged magenta emission.

A 3D-printing method generated a loong, or Chinese dragon, made of two different types of semiconducting crystals: one that fluoresces red (top right, as imaged with colour filter) and the other blue. Together the crystals make a magenta pattern (left). Credit: F. Li et al./Science

A new 3D-printing technique can build minuscule objects with materials that were off-limits to the manufacturing method until now1.

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

from$1.95

to$39.95

Learn more

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Nature 622, 221 (2023)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-023-03037-y

References

  1. Li, F. et al. Science 381, 1468–1474 (2023).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

Download references

Subjects

Latest on:

Nature Careers

Jobs

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing

Search

Advanced search

Quick links