Scientists at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) have developed a much faster and more efficient way to 3D print soft materials that look and behave more like human tissue.
The breakthrough could help future doctors create customized implants, artificial tissues, and other medical structures using living cells.
The new method improves a technology called tomographic volumetric additive manufacturing, or TVAM.
Unlike traditional 3D printers that build objects layer by layer, TVAM creates entire objects all at once by shining light into a container filled with a special liquid resin.
The light hardens selected areas of the liquid into solid shapes.
In earlier versions of this technology, scientists controlled the brightness of light to form objects.
But in 2025, researchers from EPFL’s Laboratory of Applied Photonic Devices introduced a better approach using holograms. Instead of adjusting brightness, they controlled the alignment, or “phase,” of light waves.
This preserved much more of the laser’s energy and made the printing process more powerful.
Now the same team has taken another major step forward. They created a new light-control system that makes the printing process about 70 times more efficient than previous methods.
The work was published in the journal Light: Science & Applications.
The researchers achieved this by using a new device that can directly control the phase of a laser beam inside the 3D printer. This is the first time such direct phase control has been used in a volumetric 3D printing system.
With the new setup, the scientists were able to print tiny objects only a few millimeters wide in just seconds. Larger objects measuring several centimeters could be printed within minutes.
One of the most exciting parts of the research is its potential for bioprinting, which involves printing structures that contain living cells. Biological materials often scatter light, making high-quality printing difficult. But the new system uses “self-healing” laser beams that can continue traveling even when disrupted by cells or other materials. This allows the printer to create more accurate structures inside cell-filled materials.
To demonstrate the technology, the researchers printed a life-sized human ear using a low-power laser. This could become an important step toward future medical implants designed specifically for individual patients.
The team also tested whether living cells could survive the printing process. After six days, the embedded cells were still alive and had even started forming organized networks, showing promising signs for future tissue engineering.
The researchers also improved the smoothness of printed objects by reducing a visual problem called “speckle,” which can make surfaces appear rough or grainy.
The EPFL team says future work will focus on improving printing accuracy even further and studying how the system performs with materials containing very large numbers of living cells. They are also exploring ways to print directly onto existing objects and even create structures without rotating the resin container at all.
The advance brings scientists one step closer to producing realistic tissue-like structures for medicine using faster, cheaper, and more biologically friendly 3D printing methods.
