Additive manufacturing of borosilicate glass via stereolithography

Recent surge in additive manufacturing efforts demonstrate stereolithography as a promising technique for fabricating glass materials due to the high speed and scalability of the process. However, little efforts have been devoted to manufacture borosilicate glass by the stereolithographic process. One of the challenges is that its relatively low softening temperatures could interfere with the thermal post-printing process and introduce poor fidelity and structure instability. Here, we report on the first demonstration of stereolithographic manufacturing of cerium-doped (Ce-doped) (<10%) and undoped borosilicate glass which was enabled by a multi-step post thermal processing. The optical properties of the printed glass depend on thermal processing parameters (tem-perature, time, and environment) and can be readily tuned and optimized for a wide range of applications. The printed amorphous glass shows good structural stability with band gap of 3 eV, Urbach energy of 0.75 eV and refractive index of 2.14 for 8% Ce-doped glass, respectively. These results indicate Ce-doped glass fabricated by stereolithography is suitable for scintillator applications and that additive manufacturing could be promising for borosilicate glass fabrication.

Automated summary

The recent development in stereolithography has shown potential for fabricating glass materials, but little research has been conducted on borosilicate glass. This study demonstrates the first manufacturing of cerium-doped and undoped borosilicate glass using stereolithography, enabled by a multi-step post thermal processing. The optical properties of the printed glass can be tuned and optimized for various applications.