3D glassjet printer

A team of researchers from

and

universities is developing very high temperature inkjet-style printers that will print with glass to produce 3D optical or electronic components.

The project is led by Dr Wei Loh, principal research fellow at Southampton's

, who explained: 'Although we call this a glassjet printer, we are designing a multi-purpose high-temperature printing platform. If it can print glass, it can print other materials such as metals.'

Although inkjet printers started life printing ink on paper, the technology rapidly evolved to print a wider variety of materials, such as polymers for prototyping, manufacturing and research. The main constraint in using it for materials that are liquid only when very hot is that it typically works at room temperatures.

Loh said: 'The polymers that it prints are typically low-temperature materials, and you have to apply quite a bit of polymer chemistry to get the right viscosity given that you have a temperature constraint,' said Loh. 'You can use materials that work with the existing printer, or you can change the printer so it works at higher temperature, in which case it relaxes a lot of constraints on the materials you can use.'