Holographic light engine boosts tissue-like 3D printing efficiency by 70 times

In 2025, EPFL scientists published an improved approach to tomographic volumetric additive manufacturing (TVAM): a 3D printing method that uses laser light to harden a rotating vial of photosensitive resin into a desired shape. In that work, the researchers used holograms to encode 3D forms by modulating the alignment (phase) of light waves rather than their brightness (amplitude), as previous methods had done, preserving far more of the laser’s power.