Functional Polymers for 4D Additive Manufacturing with High Precision

4D printing has gained much attention during the last years and become a promising tool for the fabrication of dynamic and adaptive structures with potential application in different fields ranging from biomedicine to optics to soft-robotics. The additional fourth dimension refers to the ability of a 3D printed object to change its properties over time. We can imagine it as the addition of “life-like” behavior. While great progress has been made at the macroscale, the continuous miniaturization of todays devices has tremendously increased the demand for manufacturing at the smaller scales. Emerging technologies such as two-photon 3D laser printing have enabled the precise printing of structures at the micro and nanometer scale.<br/><br/>Our group has recently succeeded in the development of new functional materials for laser micro- and nanoprinting. In particular, we have focus on the incorporation of new features such as conductivity, subtractive manufacturing (inks allowing printing and erasing), superresolution and more recently, stimuli response for complex actuation. In this lecture, special attention will be paid to the design of inks based on functional polymers for 3D/4D microprinting. The challenges as well as the potential and perspectives of the field will be highlighted, too.