Today, as soon as I scan the science news, I come across this picture:

what is this? A pretzel pretzel (I still don't know what this thing should be called in Chinese, just get the meaning. However, it is made of glass.

pretzel:

Why do you use glass to make this thing? You can't eat it!

actually, this is used to showcase new technologies. This "glass cake" is made with a new 3D printing technology.

in the journal Nature, researchers have just published this new 3D printing technology. 3D printing has been developed for a long time, and it is not difficult to play with the whole 3D printing yourself. However, printing glass has never been an easy task. Although there have been some glass 3D printing equipment before, but the accuracy is not satisfactory.

now, this new technology can make more accurate and transparent 3D printing glass devices. To show off this, the researchers printed glass pretzels and a model of a glass castle:

how is this 3D printing done? Instead of directly squeezing the melted glass out and stacking it together (this has been done before, but with less precision), they combine light-cured materials with nano-silica particles.

here, light-cured materials are like "adhesives" responsible for gluing particles together. When they are exposed to ultraviolet light, they solidify and retain their shape. Next, the solid will be sintered at high temperature, allowing the "glass particles" to fuse together to get the final glass.

it doesn't seem complicated, but it takes a lot of effort to improve the process in order to meet the requirements of 3D printing and get the ideal transparency. So it's not easy to print a "glass cake". In order to demonstrate the technology and attract attention, scientists have also made a lot of other fun little things.

for example, in order to show micro-scale processing technology, they like to do "micro-sculpture", such as making a super-mini guitar:

(unfortunately can't play)

or-- make a toilet.

if you show materials that can change color, be a chameleon!

(but is this really a chameleon? Feel a bit like pangolin =)

related reading: dynamic picture appreciation: one-button change of cute "chameleon"

if it is a material that will deform, then make blossoms.

read more: dynamic picture appreciation: an artificial flower blossoms automatically

read more: dynamic picture appreciation: deformation, 4D print

although these little things themselves are not useful, but in order to tell you how powerful our technology is. I'm going to play one now and show you!

it seems that scientists are also very cute.

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which way do you like to show new technology? Have you ever seen anything more novel? Comments are welcome to share.

partial reference for 3D printing of glass:

https://cen.acs.org/articles/95/web/2017/04/Nanoparticle-based-ink-helps-create-3-D-printed-glass.html

https://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v544/n7650/full/nature22061.html