Medical Design and Outsourcing

  • Home
  • Medical Device Business
    • Mergers & Acquisitions
    • Financial
    • Regulatory
  • Applications
    • Cardiovascular
    • Devices
    • Imaging
    • Implantables
    • Medical Equipment
    • Orthopedic
    • Surgical
  • Technologies
    • Contract Manufacturing
    • Components
    • Electronics
    • Extrusions
    • Materials
    • Motion Control
    • Prototyping
    • Pumps
    • Tubing
  • Med Tech Resources
    • DeviceTalks Tuesdays
    • Digital Editions
    • eBooks
    • Manufacturer Search
    • Medical Device Handbook
    • MedTech 100 Index
    • Podcasts
    • Print Subscription
    • The Big 100
    • Webinars / Digital Events
    • Whitepapers
    • Video
  • 2022 Leadership in MedTech
    • 2022 Leadership Voting!
    • 2021 Winners
    • 2020 Winners
  • Women in Medtech

This patented 3D printing method could boost medical device innovation

April 5, 2018 By Chris Newmarker

Michael McAlpine 3D printing semiconductors LEDs Princeton University University of Minnesota

Mechanical engineering professor Michael McAlpine shows off an LED that was 3D printed in curved glass. [Photo by Frank Wojciechowski/Princeton University]

Michael McAlpine, a 3D printing pioneer at the University of Minnesota, suspects that a method he helped invent to print semiconductors could help boost innovation in the medical device field and elsewhere.

The U.S. Patent Office in February issued a patent for “3D printed active electronic materials and devices.” The patent covers work that McAlpine, a University of Minnesota mechanical engineering professor, and Yong Lin Kong, a University of Utah mechanical engineering professor, conducted when they were at Princeton University. Princeton is the patent’s assignee.

[See McAlpine describe the edge of the 3D printing frontier at DeviceTalks Minnesota, June 4–5, 2018 in St. Paul, Minn.]

The patent describes a 3D printing method to produce active electronics made of semiconducting materials. Everything is made through the printer. “These disclosed semiconductors may provide a multitude of end uses, such as wearable displays and/or continuous on-eye glucose sensors,” the patent said. “These devices may also include a range of functionality, from including quantum dot light-emitting diodes (QD-LEDs), MEMS devices, transistors, solar cells, piezoelectrics, batteries, fuel cells and photodiodes.”

The patent notes that “integration of electronics on otherwise passive structural medical instruments such as catheters, gloves and contact lenses are critical for next-generation applications such as real-time monitoring of physiological conditions.”

In 2014, the research team published an article in the journal Nano Letters about 3D printing quantum dot-based light-emitting diodes (QD-LEDs) onto a curved surface such as a contact lens. The printing involved seamless interweaving of five different materials, including emissive semiconducting inorganic nanoparticles, an elastomeric matrix, organic polymers used as charge transport layers, solid and liquid metal leads, and a UV-adhesive transparent substrate layer.

3D printing semiconductors opens the possibility of directly incorporating smart functionality into soft, complex three-dimensional biomedical devices, McAlpine recently explained to Medical Design & Outsourcing. Such soft devices, he said, are often incompatible with microfabrication processes, which are limited to 3D and involve the use of harsh chemicals. Conductors are also passive, “dumb” electrodes that only relay information, while semiconductors are “smart,” able to switch, amplify and “think.”

“This opens up the possibility of incorporating smart electronics into biomedical devices such as brain interfaces for communicating with neurons or optogenetic devices such as 3D printed LEDs and photodiodes to stimulate them, sensor tattoos which can directly printed onto the body, cardiac devices which can regulate beating at low power, and ‘bionic’ devices,” McAlpine said.

3D printing semiconductors could become a big business, too. 3D printed electronics could be the next high-growth application for product innovation, with market size expected to reach $1 billion by 2025, according to Deloitte.

McAlpine is among a group of researchers worldwide who have been pioneering custom-built 3D printers that go beyond the capabilities of printers presently on the market. Think software-backed printing on an XYZ platform with multiple materials at once at scales ranging from nano to macro levels.

McAlpine has been able to entirely print devices, including electronics. While at Princeton, he garnered attention for 3D printing an ear out of living cells, while printing an antenna inside the ear at the same time. Earlier this year, McAlpine and his colleagues announced 3D printed tiny stretchable electronic sensory devices that could enable bionic skin for surgical robots – or a new class of wearables directly printed onto human skin.

In the latest advance out of the McAlpine Research Group, the research team took MRI scans and tissue samples from three patients’ prostates, tested the tissue and then used customized silicone-based inks “tuned” to precisely match the mechanical properties of each patient’s prostate tissue. The result as custom-built organ models that looked and felt like the real thing, with integrated sensors help surgeons train.

Related Articles Read More >

A portrait of Fictiv co-founder and CEO Dave Evans
Manufacturing matchmaker Fictiv raises $100M for supply chain push
Synopsys updates Simpleware 3D image processing software
What is microscale 3D printing? Lessons learned from Mayo Clinic
Paul Iazzo Visible Heart Laboratories 3D printing Stratasys
Stratasys donates 3D printers to University of Minnesota’s Visible Heart Lab

DeviceTalks Weekly.

May 13, 2022
Our Pre-Post-DeviceTalks Boston episode, also MedtronicTalks replay with Gastro CMO Austin Chiang
See More >

MDO Digital Edition

Digital Edition

Subscribe to Medical Design & Outsourcing. Bookmark, share and interact with the leading medical design engineering magazine today.

MEDTECH 100 INDEX

Medtech 100 logo
Market Summary > Current Price
The MedTech 100 is a financial index calculated using the BIG100 companies covered in Medical Design and Outsourcing.
DeviceTalks

DeviceTalks is a conversation among medical technology leaders. It's events, podcasts, webinars and one-on-one exchanges of ideas & insights.

DeviceTalks

New MedTech Resource

Medical Tubing

Enewsletter Subscriptions

Enewsletter Subscriptions

MassDevice

Mass Device

The Medical Device Business Journal. MassDevice is the leading medical device news business journal telling the stories of the devices that save lives.

Visit Website
MDO ad
Medical Design and Outsourcing
  • MassDevice
  • DeviceTalks
  • MedTech 100 Index
  • Medical Tubing + Extrusion
  • Drug Delivery Business News
  • Drug Discovery & Development
  • Pharmaceutical Processing World
  • R&D World
  • About Us/Contact
  • Advertise With Us
  • Subscribe to Print Magazine
  • Subscribe to E-newsletter
  • Attend our Monthly Webinars
  • Listen to our Weekly Podcasts
  • Join our DeviceTalks Tuesdays Discussion

Copyright © 2022 WTWH Media, LLC. All Rights Reserved. Site Map | Privacy Policy | RSS

Search Medical Design & Outsourcing

  • Home
  • Medical Device Business
    • Mergers & Acquisitions
    • Financial
    • Regulatory
  • Applications
    • Cardiovascular
    • Devices
    • Imaging
    • Implantables
    • Medical Equipment
    • Orthopedic
    • Surgical
  • Technologies
    • Contract Manufacturing
    • Components
    • Electronics
    • Extrusions
    • Materials
    • Motion Control
    • Prototyping
    • Pumps
    • Tubing
  • Med Tech Resources
    • DeviceTalks Tuesdays
    • Digital Editions
    • eBooks
    • Manufacturer Search
    • Medical Device Handbook
    • MedTech 100 Index
    • Podcasts
    • Print Subscription
    • The Big 100
    • Webinars / Digital Events
    • Whitepapers
    • Video
  • 2022 Leadership in MedTech
    • 2022 Leadership Voting!
    • 2021 Winners
    • 2020 Winners
  • Women in Medtech