In the recently published, ‘Silica optical fiber drawn from 3D printed preforms,’ the authors created single and multimode fibers that can be used to create designs and parts for a range of networks, likely related to telecommunications and Internet of Things (IoT) technology. Researchers investigated created a silica preform through both 3D printing and thermal processing—no small feat, considering it requires temperatures over T = 1900 ℃. To avoid this issue, the researchers tried using a lower melting polymer—a hybrid polymer-glass mix—via DLP printing.

Sourced through Scoop.it from: 3dprint.com