3D Printing

3D Printing is a powerful method to shape materials into complex structures that recreate the hierarchical design of biological architectures. We have exploited layer-by-layer 3D printing technologies to spatially control the chemical composition and local structure of synthetic materials as they “grow” on the print bed.
The main focus of our research on this topic is to design printable inks that contain building blocks, such as molecules, particles or droplets, that are able to self-assemble into structures below the resolution of the printer.
The top-down printing of layers combined with the bottom-up self-assembly processes have allowed for the manufacturing of porous and dense hierarchical materials with exquisite three-dimensional architectures and properties.