VOICE OVER: This 3D printer creates twisting helix shapes as it prints, thanks to a newly designed rotating multi-material nozzle.
This new technology can create complex patterns inside the layers it prints, and allows researchers to finely control the properties of different parts of a printed structure.
3D printers can already print with multiple different materials – called inks – at once.
For example, using nozzles like this one.
But this new design adds rotation, turning both the nozzle and the ink barrels, allowing it to make things like helices.
The researchers have experimented with changing the angle of the helix… With turning the rotation on and off… And with adjusting the nozzle to keep one colour on the outside at all times, whatever shape is being printed.
They say that this gives them much more detailed control than conventional 3D printing because they can create shapes within each 'voxel', which is the 3D equivalent of a pixel.
The fact that this new design can create details smaller than a voxel opens up a lot of possibilities.
For example, helices have particularly useful properties.
This filament is made from special conductive and dielectric inks.
