Imagine camouflage that renders a subject
almost invisible; prosthetic limbs that look and feel like real appendages; smartphone
battery power that’s embedded throughout the thin fabric of your clothing; windows
that direct light to different parts of the room throughout the day. All of these
ideas and much more may be possible with a new age of material science that is now
unfolding. Researchers at the South Dakota School of Mines & Technology are learning to manipulate the basic properties
of innovative materials to enable revolutionary new products.
“We’re really trying to enhance voxel-level
engineering,” says Travis Walker, Ph.D., assistant professor of chemical and
biological engineering at South Dakota Mines.
So, what’s a voxel? In photography, the
sharpness of an image depends on the number of pixels per inch. More pixels in
an image yield more vivid detail.
Move into three dimensions, and resolution is
not determined by pixels, but voxels. Like digital photography, the
resolution in 3D printing technology keeps getting better. Today, researchers are
working to manipulate single voxel sizes that are smaller than the diameter of a
human hair. This effort means very fine and detailed 3D printing.
The next evolution in 3D printing may involve
the ability to change the properties of a material, voxel by voxel. Just as many
different colored pixels make...