Research & Development

The combination of ceramic and silver in a single part via multi-material 3D printing is pushing the limits of what LTCC (Low-Temperature Co-fired Ceramic) modules can achieve. Additive manufacturing enables highly customized geometries and the precise placement of conductive paths directly into dielectric ceramic structures—capabilities that are unachievable with traditional methods.

LTCC technology is essential in modern electronics, offering compact, stable, and reliable solutions. It’s widely used in telecommunications, automotive, aerospace, and consumer electronics to embed passive components like capacitors and inductors in multilayer ceramic modules. LTCC is particularly crucial for RF systems, including 5G, satellite communication, and radar.

In automotive and aerospace, 3D-printed LTCC-silver components support high-reliability systems like radar, GPS, and V2X communication. The fusion of LTCC with 3D-printed silver opens new possibilities for lighter, smaller, and more efficient high-frequency electronics.

Porous ceramics, and porous alumina in particular, are especially valued for their cost-efficiency, wide raw material availability, low thermal conductivity, high thermal endurance, and excellent resistance to chemical degradation. These attributes make them highly suitable for applications such as lightweight structural components, catalyst supports, filtration membranes, and high-performance thermal insulation systems.

Through the development of multi-material designs with components of varying porosity within a single part, it is possible to precisely control the local material structure.

This allows for the targeted enhancement of mechanical strength at specific locations, where higher load-bearing capacity is required. Additionally, the integration of such multi-functional architectures can lead to improved thermal shock resistance, further expanding the potential applications of porous alumina in harsh operating environments.

The combination of metal-ceramic structures – in this case, pure copper and alumina-based glass ceramics – opens up entirely new possibilities for 3D-printed circuit boards, electronic and telecommunication components, the three-dimensional realization of conductive pathways and piezoelectric stacks, or medical instruments.
Utilizing the Lithoz CeraFab Multi 2M30 in such applications opens the door to manufacturing much more complex structures, with great potential for serial production while simultaneously minimizing fabrication costs and shortening the overall process.

Lithoz America has collaborated with MITRE and MSI Transducers Corp. to advance the design and manufacture of underwater acoustic transducers to meet the need for improved underwater communication and monitoring systems. Conventional methods limit the geometric complexity and performance of piezoelectric transducers, which are essential for transmitting and receiving signals in marine environments.

Using ceramic additive manufacturing, the team developed transducers with novel geometries that enable higher sensitivity, directivity, and efficiency. This method also enables the production of customizable components for compact autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) and overcomes the size and power limitations of conventional transducers.

Key breakthroughs included proving that 3D printed materials can match or exceed the performance of conventional materials and demonstrate the feasibility of complex, performance-enhancing designs. The innovation highlights the potential of ceramic 3D printing to address challenges in underwater and other high-performance environments, with applications in military, environmental monitoring and oceanographic research.

3D-printed Aluminum Nitride Heat Exchanger: Shaping the Future of Sustainable Aviation. Proving the words of our CTO, Johannes Benedikt from summer 2023: "All answers to our urgent questions today, from sustainability to climate change, will somehow contain a 3D-printed ceramic part as a part of the solution."

As part of a forward-looking TRIATHLON project to power aircraft with hydrogen (currently at a low technology readiness level), we are contributing a key innovation: a ceramic 3D-printed heat exchanger from Aluminum Nitride. The main advantage of AlN is its high thermal conductivity, low thermal expansion and good resistance to hydrogen embrittlement.

This component ensures that liquid hydrogen is efficiently pre-warmed using excess heat before entering the fuel cell, improving overall system performance. The geometry was designed by Niccolò Casini from Ergon Research, who also conducted CFD simulations to evaluate heat distribution, flow behavior, and pressure drop, to develop the right design before fabrication.

After intensive development work with the German glass manufacturer Glassomer, Lithoz has introduced the new material LithaGlass.

As a slurry with a base of quartz glass, the fact that it can be 3D-printed makes LithaGlass a ground-breaking new achievement, combining the design freedom of 3D printing with the desirable properties of high-performance fused silica glass – including mechanical stability, high thermal and chemical resistance, as well as low thermal expansion and thus high resistance to thermal shock.

The key to sustainable living on the moon is being able to manufacture the necessary structures and spares in situ and on-demand. This avoids the cost, volume, and up-mass constraints that would prohibit a successful launch with everything needed for long-duration missions on the moon.

In terms of meeting the demand for parts with highly complex geometries and high accuracy, ceramic stereolithography is a revolutionary manufacturing technology. Considering the high resolution and the relative density of specimens, the feasibility of fabricating highly accurate, small and intricate porous regolith parts such as catalysts, filters, etc. will allow for a significant breakthrough in enabling long-duration human space exploration.

Silicon nitride turbocharger rotors are used to enhance the response of an engine. Using ceramic rotors instead of metal reduces their inertia and thus reduces deceleration. In addition, these rotors are exposed to very hot gas and so must be durable even under these extreme conditions. Until now, complicated components made of silicon nitride could not be manufactured due to the limitations of conventional machining processes. Thanks to their powerful LCM technology, Lithoz CeraFab 3D printers enable the production of complex-shaped rotors to improve the performance of microturbines.

Watch a video on thermal shock resistance testing for a 3D-printed silicon nitride component.

The LCM 3D printing process for ceramics enables the production of applications with the finest of details and highly complex internal structures while maintaining excellent surface quality. Some examples are micronozzles and valves with flow-optimized paths, miniature rotors and micro milling tools, electronic applications such as complex and precise substrates and medical sensors, instruments and surgical tools.

The industrial series production of complex ceramic components with microstructures requires a technology that meets every demand for high repeatability. Where conventional methods such as milling, drilling, grinding and ceramic injection molding clearly reach their limits, CeraFab printers offer scalable series production of parts with features as low as 100 µm.

Increasingly more stringent requirements for environmentally friendly and fuel-efficient aircraft engines call for more innovative turbines, which naturally require greatly improved cooling. With Lithoz's LCM technology, such functional and efficient components can finally be produced.

In addition to drastically reducing development time and thus speeding up time-to-market, it is possible to enable ever shorter development cycles, as the 3D printing of complex designed ceramic cores eliminates the need for expensive molds and lengthy changeovers. This efficiency makes LCM the perfect choice when it comes to producing innovative cast cores for the aerospace industry.

Researchers at the Montanuniversität Leoben, working directly with Lithoz engineers, were able to achieve the highest strength of 1GPa in 3Dprinted alumina for the very first time.

Because the parts were 3D-printed with different materials (using the multi-material approach), researchers were able to digitally control material placement to such a degree that these materials became even denser during sintering than alumina alone does (monolithic alumina, 650Mpa). They were able to leverage the layer-by-layer printing process to control residual stresses and effectively create this sort of alumina with the highest strength.