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Updated: May 7, 2026

3D Printing and In Situ Surface Modification via Type I Photoinitiated Reversible Addition-Fragmentation Chain Transfer Polymerization
Published on: February 18, 2022
Triplet-Triplet Annihilation Photopolymerization for High-Resolution 3D Printing
David K Limberg1, Ji-Hwan Kang1,2, Ryan C Hayward1,3
1Department of Polymer Science and Engineering, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst, Massachusetts 01003, United States.
Abstract:
Two-photon polymerization (TPP) currently offers the highest resolution available in 3D printing (∼100 nm) but requires femtosecond laser pulses at very high peak intensity (∼1 TW/cm2). Here, we demonstrate 3D printing based on triplet-triplet-annihilation photopolymerization (TTAP), which achieves submicron resolution while using a continuous visible LED light source with comparatively low light intensity (∼10 W/cm2). TTAP enables submicrometer feature sizes with exposure times of ∼0.1 s/voxel without requiring a coherent or pulsed light source, opening the door to low-cost fabrication with submicron resolution. This approach enables 3D printing of a diverse array of designs with high resolution and is amenable to future parallelization efforts.
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