#Working3D: Six Questions for a Additive Manufacturing Materials Engineer

It’s time once again for a new article in the #Working3D series, wherein we present the various professions in the additive manufacturing industry. But no material, no print – that’s why this time we’re taking a closer look at the jobs of the people behind the material and who develop it. What exactly do engineers who are responsible for materials do? What skills and experience do they bring to the table so that 3D printing materials can be created and used for additive manufacturing in a wide variety of areas? We explored these questions in conversation with Markus Lunzer, Team Leader for Materials & Application at the Viennese company UpNano GmbH. He explained what a materials engineer needs to bring to the table and what his day-to-day work looks like.

3DN: Could you introduce yourself?

My name is Markus Lunzer. I studied technical chemistry at the Vienna University of Technology (TU Wien), with a special focus on synthetic chemistry. As part of my dissertation, I worked on photopolymerization and light-cleavable hydrogels. After completing my studies, I started working in materials development at the then newly founded 2-photon 3D printing company UpNano GmbH in 2019, where I have been leading the materials and applications team for four years.

3DN: How did you discover additive manufacturing?

During my master’s thesis, I synthesized molecules that were particularly suitable as photoinitiators for 2-photon polymerization (2PP) due to their structure. This is a particularly high-resolution 3D printing technology that uses a pulsed laser and makes it possible to produce components with resolutions in the sub-micrometer range. While testing these molecules on machines at the university that were still experimental at the time, I realized how exciting this technology is and how much potential it has as a manufacturing technology. So I decided to take a closer look at the application of the technology in my dissertation, while retaining the material development aspect. I then worked on hydrogels for biomedical research, which can be cleaved at a very high resolution using 2PP, for example to create microchannels or locally expose reactive chemical groups.