Direct 3D-printing of phosphate glass by fused deposition modeling

Additive manufacturing of oxide glass enables on-demand, low-cost manufacturing of complex optical components for numerous applications, opening new opportunities to explore functionalities inaccessible otherwise. Here, we report a straightforward extrusion-based 3D-printing approach, deploying the fused deposition modeling (FDM) process, to produce optically transparent phosphate glasses with complex geometries and preserved structural and photoluminescence properties. Using a customized entry-level FDM desktop printer with a layer resolution of 100 mu m, highly dense and transparent europium-doped phosphate glass structures can be fabricated from glass filaments pulled using a fiber-drawing tower from the parent glass preform. Combined with the suggested strategies for performance and quality improvement, professional-grade FDM printers can offer better layer resolutions. This direct approach for 3D-printing phosphate glass may open up new horizons not only for developing cutting-edge optical components but also for promoting new biomedical solutions upon making use of alternative biocompatible phosphate compositions. (c) 2020 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).