Even Hair-Like Structures Can Be 3D-Printed

                MIT scientists who developed a new way to 3D print thousands of hair-like structures within minutes on various surfaces to perform useful tasks such as sensing and adhesion. Instead of using conventional computer-aided design software to draw thousands of individual hairs on a computer the team built a new software platform, called “Cilllia,” that lets users define the angle, thickness, density, and height of thousands of hairs, in just a few minutes.

                Using the new software, the researchers design arrays of hair-like structures with a resolution of 50 microns – about the width of a human hair. They designed and then printed arrays ranging from coarse bristles to fine fur, onto flat and also curved surfaces, using a conventional 3D printer.

                The technology could possibly be used to print wigs and hair extensions. But their end goal is seeing how 3D-printed hair could perform useful tasks such as sensing, adhesion and actuation. Researcher trying to figure out how can they fully utilize the potential of 3-D printing, and create new functional materials whose properties are easily tunable and controllable.