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The world's smallest 3D printer

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    Hello everybody,
    thanks for having me today.
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    I'm a little bit injured,
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    but it takes more than a car
    to stop me from talking to you.
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    (Laughter)
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    (Applause)
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    Maybe a tank?
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    So today, I want to talk
    about the microprinter,
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    about my work, how everything started,
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    what was my motivation to build
    the smallest 3-D printer in the world.
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    Let's start with my daily business.
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    So, my normal working field is called
    two-photon polymerization.
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    It sounds very nerdy, it is very nerdy.
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    (Laughter)
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    What do you need for making this stuff?
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    You need a complex laser system,
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    a so-called femtosecond laser system,
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    which you focus onto a very tiny spot --
    very, very, very tiny --
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    and this is a very expensive,
    not very durable laser system. (Laughs)
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    And on the other hand, you need
    a very complex positioning system.
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    We call it "Agathe,"
    because it's very heavy,
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    and we thought Agathe was a nice name.
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    (Laughter)
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    And, well, you need this system
    to move the laser through,
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    for example, at the very accurate
    level, about 200 nanometers,
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    so very accurate.
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    And, well, what can you do with that?
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    You can do things
    that you cannot see with your eyes.
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    So you can print out whatever you want,
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    you can print out a tower bridge,
    you can print out Agathe's husband ...
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    (Laughter)
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    OK, but, what makes it so mind-blowing?
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    You maybe notice this scale bar,
    and it's 100 microns for the tower bridge
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    and 20 microns for the fat man.
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    For comparison, the diameter
    of a human hair is around 50 microns.
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    So these objects are like
    a dust particle or even smaller,
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    so you can hardly see them.
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    What you can also do
    and what we are also working on
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    is improving the system,
    improving the resins,
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    the material we use for catching
    a worm or something else.
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    Inside the resin, we move the laser
    through the resin, it gets polymerized,
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    and we catch a living animal,
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    here, a special worm.
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    What we're trying to do,
    or what the next step would be,
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    is to make biocompatible polymers
    and maybe to write some things
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    inside your body
    or inside the body of a worm,
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    or to attach cells
    to our structures, and so on.
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    But, OK, that's my normal working field.
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    Today I want to tell the story
    behind the microprinter.
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    What was my motivation?
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    Well, everything started
    on Monday morning, 6:30.
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    OK, that's a lie. Maybe it was 10 o'clock.
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    (Laughter)
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    I went to my laser lab, which is located
    near Karlsplatz, in Freihaus,
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    at the Vienna University of Technology.
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    I went in, and I saw
    that this laser system was broken,
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    and I tried to fix it.
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    It took me half a day, several hours.
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    Then I noticed, OK, there is a major
    issue with the pump source.
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    I cannot fix that myself; we have to call
    the service technician.
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    And from that point on,
    I noticed I had time to think.
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    So I thought, "What to do now?
    Maybe start to write my PhD thesis."
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    (Laughter)
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    No, no, not a good idea at all.
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    So I started thinking, maybe
    write a scientific paper.
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    Not a good idea at all.
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    And then, on Saturday,
    after a week of thinking,
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    I came up with the idea
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    to build the smallest
    3-D microprinter in the world.
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    (Laughter)
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    Or, the smallest 3-D printer in the world.
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    (Applause)
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    So I called my professor
    and told him about it.
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    "Hey, let's build the thing!
    I have time. Is it OK?"
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    "Go ahead, build it."
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    And so I went to the university,
    and from that point on,
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    I just put everything out of my brain
    inside the computer
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    to make this CAD construction
    of the whole thing.
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    And after a few months,
    we had the first test run with the system.
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    It worked brilliantly
    from the first test on,
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    and it had the same resolution
    as systems which cost 60,000 euros,
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    and we only spent 1,500 euros
    for the system,
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    not including my salary,
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    but that wouldn't add so much on its own.
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    (Laughter)
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    OK, how does this work?
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    I brought you a video
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    where you can see how you can put
    in your three-dimensional file.
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    This video was produced
    by a friend of mine, Junior Veloso.
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    And you can see, you have
    a set stage which moves up.
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    And under the set stage,
    there is a liquid,
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    which gets solidified by the light.
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    And slice by slice, you create the model,
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    so you really pull it out of the liquid.
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    And it just depends
    on how big your model is.
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    Maybe you have 100 slices,
    1,000 or 10,000 slices.
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    So that's how it works.
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    Of course, this is a much bigger machine
    than the microprinter,
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    but it uses more or less
    the same principles,
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    so that's what I want to show you.
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    At the end, this head, this alien head,
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    is attached to the building platform,
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    and when the process is done,
    you just simply have to break the head
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    from the support structure you need,
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    and then everything is ready.
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    So.
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    OK, but what does
    the microprinter look like?
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    Well, maybe some of you
    have already seen this picture.
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    I also brought it to you in person,
    so I want to kindly introduce you
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    to the 3-D microprinter,
    which looks like this.
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    So it's very small,
    it's really a desktop version.
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    It's a really affordable system.
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    And we are really proud of it,
    actually, and --
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    (Laughter)
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    And you have this tiny little system;
    there are bigger ones.
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    What can you do
    with a cheap, affordable system?
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    For example, you all know
    these hearing aids?
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    They have to be produced
    individually for each person,
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    so this is a perfect example
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    for using this technology
    to create the shell for a hearing aid.
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    Normally, you go to the store,
    they scan your ear,
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    they send the data
    to Germany via email, and --
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    (Laughter)
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    and then they print it out with a --
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    (Applause)
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    Thank you.
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    (Applause)
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    Then they print it out with a big machine,
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    and then, when it's ready
    to send back to Vienna
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    or wherever you are --
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    via post --
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    then they put in the electronics.
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    When you have a microprinter
    in your store,
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    you can go to the store,
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    they scan your ear,
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    they just press "Print,"
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    the 3-D model gets sliced,
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    and you can go for a coffee,
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    you can go to the university,
    whatever you want,
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    and instead of five days, you can have
    your ear shell or your hearing aid
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    in just one day.
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    And that is an example
    of how these tiny little machines
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    or other cheap 3-D printers
    could change our everyday lives.
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    So thank you very much,
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    and start printing whatever
    you want, whatever you need.
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    (Applause)
Title:
The world's smallest 3D printer
Speaker:
Klaus Stadlmann
Description:

What could you do with the world's smallest 3D printer? Klaus Stadlmann demos his tiny, affordable printer that could someday make customized hearing aids -- or sculptures smaller than a human hair.

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Video Language:
English
Team:
closed TED
Project:
TEDTalks
Duration:
08:28
Brian Greene edited English subtitles for The world's smallest 3D printer
Brian Greene approved English subtitles for The world's smallest 3D printer
Brian Greene accepted English subtitles for The world's smallest 3D printer
Camille Martínez edited English subtitles for The world's smallest 3D printer
Camille Martínez edited English subtitles for The world's smallest 3D printer

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