High-efficiency multi-scale holographic volumetric 3D printing with a phase light modulator

Maria Isabel Álvarez-Castaño; Riccardo Rizzo; Viola Sgarminato; Ye Pu; Christophe Moser

doi:10.1038/s41377-026-02331-4

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High-efficiency multi-scale holographic volumetric 3D printing with a phase light modulator

Original Articles

- High-efficiency multi-scale holographic volumetric 3D printing with a phase light modulator
- Light: Science & Applications Vol. 15, Issue 8, Pages: 2702-2719(2026)
- Affiliations：
  
  1.Laboratory of Applied Photonics Devices, School of Engineering, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Lausanne CH-1015, Switzerland
  2.Present address: BIOINSIDE Lab, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (DIMEAS), Politecnico di Torino, Turin 10129, Italy
- Author bio：
  
  Maria Isabel. Álvarez-Castaño (maria.alvarezcastano@epfl.ch)
  Christophe Moser (christophe.moser@epfl.ch)
- Funds：
- DOI：10.1038/s41377-026-02331-4
  CLC：
- Received：25 August 2025，
  
  Revised：2026-04-01，
  
  Accepted：22 April 2026，
  
  Online First：19 May 2026，
  
  Published：31 August 2026
- Accepted：
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Álvarez-Castaño, M. I. et al. High-efficiency multi-scale holographic volumetric 3D printing with a phase light modulator. Light: Science & Applications, 15, 2702-2719 (2026).
DOI：

Álvarez-Castaño, M. I. et al. High-efficiency multi-scale holographic volumetric 3D printing with a phase light modulator. Light: Science & Applications, 15, 2702-2719 (2026). DOI： 10.1038/s41377-026-02331-4.

摘要

Abstract

Light-based 3D printing with photocurable resins enables the rapid fabrication of complex structures with high resolution and fidelity. Tomographic Volumetric Additive Manufacturing (TVAM) employs a digital micromirror device (DMD) to project amplitude light patterns into rotating resin volumes

producing 3D geometries through photopolymerization. Typically

the light projection efficiency in such binary amplitude modulator-based systems is below a few percent. Recent advancements introduced phase encoding in TVAM using binary amplitude modulators and the Lee Hologram method

increasing axial control and boosting light efficiency to about 10%. In this work

we present the first 3D printing platform utilizing a phase light modulator (PLM)

based on an array of micro-electro-mechanical piston mirrors. Compared to amplitude encoding

phase encoding with the PLM yields a 70-fold increase in laser power efficiency. By coupling this efficient light engine with a speckle reduction method in holographic

volumetric additive manufacturing (HoloVAM)

we experimentally demonstrate printing 3D objects across different scales from hundreds of micrometers to centimeters and with various materials from acrylate-based resins to soft hydrogels

including cell-laden hydrogels with a concentration of 1 million cells per mL. Micro-CT revealed a

$$ \sim 30.3\

\mu {m} $$

as the smallest positive feature printed. Moreover

we introduce the use of gelatin Thiol/Norbornene as a material for printing with the Holographic VAM technique

which allows us to print large-scale objects (up to

$$ (3\

\times 3\times 4\

{{cm}}^{3}) $$

within 2 minutes using only a 150 mW laser diode. The PLM opens up new avenues in volumetric AM for holographic techniques using low-cost single-mode laser diodes.

关键词

Keywords

references

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