Specialty Fiber Draw Tower (Optogear OG-510 D) – 26 ft. high setup for thermal drawing of specialty fibers. Thermal drawing is the process familiar from fabrication of optical communication fiber. In this process, a glassy rod – the preform – is fed into a furnace from its top, where it is heated to become a viscose liquid and is drawn into a fiber from the bottom of the furnace, like a taffy candy.

The draw tower at FAMES Lab is a double sided setup with two independent draw lines equipped with thee furnaces: for fused silica, soft glasses, and polymers. Temperature range – room temperature to 2500 ^oC (4532 ^oF). Accepts preforms of up to 50 mm (1.97”) thick, and produces high-quality fiber at a rate of up to 100 m/min (328 ft/min).

Glass Working Lathe (Optogear OG-440) – a setup for silica glass fiber preform fabrication. Capable of scaling and collapsing glass tubes at a controllable rate, and seal core materials within the preform at high vacuum (10^-5 mbar) using hydrogen-oxygen burners and turbo-pump vacuum system. Temperature range - 1000 - 2500 ^oC (1832 - 4532 ^oF), heat capacity – 35 to 40 kW (120,000 to 137,000 BTU/h).

Spark Plasma Sintering (SPS) Hot Press (AGUS-PECS SS-250Rx) – in SPS RF current is passed through a powder compact. The heat is generated mainly at the boundaries between powder grains, due to an increased impedance there, allowing compacting the powder without melting the grains, in contrast to the conventional hot pressing. This preserves size- and structure-dependent properties of the individual nanoparticles. Due to very high heating / cooling rate (up to 1000 K/min), sintering of a sample takes only a few minutes. SPS is a preferred method for preparation of ceramics based on nanoparticles with enhanced magnetic, magnetoelectric, piezoelectric, thermoelectric, optical or biomedical properties. Allows sintering nanotubes / nanowires without destroying their structure, and sintering materials with dissimilar melting points into the same compact.

FAMES Lab SPS provides sintering load of 2 to 250 kN (450 to 56,202 lbf), operation temperature – room to 2500 ^oC (4532 ^oF). Maximal sample height – 30mm, maximal sample diameter depends on processing temperature: for high temperature materials (up to 2500 ^oC (4532 ^oF)) – 30 mm (1.18”), semiconductors (up to 1500 ^oC (2732 ^oF)) – 60 mm (2.36”), borosilicates (up to 700 ^oC (1292 ^oF)) – 100 mm (3.94”), polymers (up to 300 ^oC (572 ^oF)) – 100 mm (3.94”).

Production-grade Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) 3D Printer (Stratasys Fortus 450mc) – thermoplastic-extrusion industrial printer with build envelope of 406 x 355 x 406 mm [16 x 14 x 16 in.]. I addition to standard thermoplastics, such as ABS, Ultem, FDM Nylon, ASA, PC, ASA, and ST-130, can optionally run high-performance thermoplastics for specialized production parts in fields such as medical, aerospace, research and defense. Our machine is currently set to run a translucent natural PC-ISO (biocompatible grade, for pharmaceutical, food packaging and medical applications) with soluble supports at 0.127 mm (0.005 in.) resolution.

Research-grade Binder Jetting (BJ) 3D printer (ExOne Innovent+) – BJ is an additive manufacturing process in which a liquid binding agent is selectively deposited to join powder particles. Layers of material are then bonded to form an object. The printhead strategically drops binder into the powder. The job box lowers and another layer of powder is then spread and binder is added. Over time, the part develops through the layering of powder and binder. Binder Jetting is similar to traditional paper printing. The binder functions like the ink as it moves across the layers of powder, which like paper, forms the final product. Binder Jetting is capable of printing a variety of materials including metals, sands and ceramics. The resulting prints are typically cured to debind, and sintered to reduce porosity.

Our printer has a print volume of 160 x 65 x 65 mm (6.3 x 2.5 x 2.5 inches). It is equipped with 30 pico-liter voxel print head, and ultrasonically agitated re-coater, allowing printing successfully even powders with diminished flow properties and tendency to agglomerate, while minimizing pluming.

Bioprinter (Cellink BioX) - 3D bioprinting enables the generation of precisely controlled 3D cell models and tissue constructs, by engineering anatomically-shaped substrates with tissue-like complexity. 3D bioprinting has the potential to solve many critical unmet needs in medical research, including applications in cosmetics testing, drug discovery, regenerative medicine, and functional organ replacement. A range of materials, methods, and cells can be used to yield the desired tissue construct.

Cellink BioX allows printing thermoplastics as well as UV-curable and thermoset bioinks in jetting and continuous extrusion mode. Bioinks are hydrogel suspensions containing living cells and biomaterials that mimic the extracellular matrix environment, supporting cell adhesion, proliferation, and differentiation after printing.