- NEWS AND VIEWS
A 3D-printing method has made single crystals of metals and alloys in complex shapes and up to one metre in length, as needed for advanced technological applications.
By
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Gregory S. Rohrer
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Gregory S. Rohrer is in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15213, USA.
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The dazzling gemstones used in jewellery are single crystals of minerals, prized for their beauty and uniformity. Single crystals of materials also have crucial functions in silicon microprocessors and jet-engine turbines. However, technological applications have been limited because such crystals are rare in nature and are difficult or expensive to make for most synthetic materials. The breakthrough reported in Nature by Liu et al.1 is therefore newsworthy: the authors have discovered a way to produce single crystals of metals in a wide range of shapes and sizes, including complex geometries that cannot be achieved by established crystal-growth methods. The method they used is a type of additive manufacturing — which means that it works like a 3D printer2 — and has the advantage of being implemented using readily available equipment.
doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-026-03257-y
References
Liu, C. et al. Nature https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-11185-0 (2026).
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Reed, R. C. in The Superalloys: Fundamentals and Applications Ch. 1. (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2006).
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Competing Interests
The author declares no competing interests.
