Prof. WEN Xiewen, Member of Research Institute for Advanced Manufacturing (RIAM) and Assistant Professor of Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, was recently interviewed on the RTHK programme “Under the Sun”, where he introduced his team’s newly developed 3D glass nanofabrication technology.
Prof. Wen explained that his team has successfully developed a 3D glass nanofabrication technique that overcomes the limitations of the traditional subtractive processing approach used in semiconductor fabrication. Instead, it adopts an additive manufacturing method to directly produce high-precision glass nanostructures. Compared with earlier glass 3D printing technologies, the manufacturing precision has improved by a factor of 100, and it has been further enhanced by up to 1,000 times according to the latest research.
He noted that the development of this technology involved challenges across multiple stages, including materials development, laser processing and post-processing. From the synthesis of glass raw materials and the development of a specialised non-linear laser system to post-processing techniques designed to prevent deformation, all key technologies were developed in-house. As a result, the team has established a complete vertically integrated technology chain.
Prof. Wen added that this new technology has wide-ranging applications in areas such as precision optics, biochips and advanced packaging, and is expected to reduce production costs significantly. For example, producing a wafer-level glass device measuring 1 cm2 using conventional methods can cost several thousand to as much as HK$10,000, whereas the team’s technique reduces it to just one percent.
The team has established a company and is now actively improving process yield and accelerating technology industrialisation, while also exploring broader application areas such as glass-based optical data storage.
Online coverage:
RTHK - https://polyu.me/4mJjTdT (04:26 - 23:36) (Chinese only)
| Research Units | Research Institute for Advanced Manufacturing |
|---|
You may also like
