3D Printing Technology Toward State-Of-The-Art Photoelectric Devices

Photoelectric devices and components, as indispensable and increasingly significant technologies, are widely applied in energy conversion, electrocommunication, environmental detection, and so on. The rapid and accurate fabrication of optoelectronic devices and components brings severe challenges to the traditional preparation approaches. As a revolutionary emerging technology, 3D printing has unique advantages in geometric shape design and rapid prototyping in comparison with traditional manufacturing methods. Furthermore, it possesses excellent flexibility for fabrication methods and materials. To satisfy the fast-expanding market of optoelectronic devices, the research in this field is showing an explosion of growth for 3D printing. However, systematic analysis and summary are still bleak about 3D printing in the photoelectric field despite abundant individual reports being presented. In order to point out its development status and forecast the future research direction, the relevant reports are summarized. Four categories of photoelectric devices are chosen as representative, including solar concentrators, solar cells, light emitting diodes, and photodetectors. In this article, the development and latest progress of 3D printing photoelectric devices are summarized as well as critical analyses of the challenges and opportunities are presented.