Rapid, voxel-based 3D printing with yield-stress fluid inks

Despite decades of progress, 3D printing still presents trade-offs in what materials can be printed and at what resolutions, speeds, and part volumes. We introduce direct ink additive lithography, or DIAL, to alleviate these trade-offs when printing with yield-stress, complex fluid inks used to print functional materials. DIAL combines translational photopatterning with ink sheet deposition for rapid, voxel-based 3D printing. Using model DIAL inks with kilopascal-scale yield stresses, we evaluate how ink rheology influences printing and compare DIAL against digital light processing (DLP) and direct ink writing (DIW). Since DIAL enables fast, high-throughput, support-free, and large-area printing, we showcase its broad potential for producing functional materials by printing multiscale architected, multimaterial, structural electrolyte, and hydrogel structures that are difficult if not impossible to 3D print today.