This patented 3D printing method could boost medical device innovation

Mechanical engineering professor Michael McAlpine shows off an LED that was 3D printed in curved glass. [Photo by Frank Wojciechowski/Princeton University]

Michael McAlpine, a 3D printing pioneer at the University of Minnesota, suspects that a method he helped invent to print semiconductors could help boost innovation in the medical device field and elsewhere.

The U.S. Patent Office in February issued a patent for “3D printed active electronic materials and devices.” The patent covers work that McAlpine, a University of Minnesota mechanical engineering professor, and Yong Lin Kong, a University of Utah mechanical engineering professor, conducted when they were at Princeton University. Princeton is the patent’s assignee.

[See McAlpine describe the edge of the 3D printing frontier at DeviceTalks Minnesota, June 4–5 in St. Paul, Minn.]

The patent describes a 3D printing method to produce active electronics made of semiconducting materials — a method that only uses a 3D printer. “These disclosed semiconductors may provide a multitude of end uses, such as wearable displays and/or continuous on-eye glucose sensors,” the patent said. “These devices may also include a range of functionality, from including quantum dot light-emitting diodes (QD-LEDs), MEMS devices, transistors, solar cells, piezoelectrics, batteries, fuel cells and photodiodes.”

Get the full story on our sister site Medical Design & Outsourcing.

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