The Cluster
The Cluster of Excellence 3D Matter Made to Order (3DMM2O) is a joint initiative of Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) and Heidelberg University. The main task of the Cluster is to take 3D Additive Manufacturing to the next level.
3D Additive Manufacturing, or plainly speaking “3D printing”, has the potential to change our world in the 21st Century as much as Gutenberg’s movable-type “2D printing” did in the 15th Century. 3D Additive Manufacturing converts information – a digital blueprint – directly and rapidly into physical objects.
This technology drastically shortens time to market, allows customization without additional cost, overcomes limitations of standard machining, and places the production of materials, objects, and functional devices from the hands of few factory owners into the hands of many with access to tabletop instruments with 3D printing capabilities. At the macroscale, 3D Additive Manufacturing of polymers and metals is already a megatrend worldwide.
The Cluster 3D Matter Made to Order (3DMM2O) aims at bringing 3D Additive Manufacturing from the macroscale to the micro-, nano-, and eventually to the molecular scale and at applying these technologies in three selected application Thrusts.
3DMM2O is jointly carried by the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) and Heidelberg University. Funding by the German Excellence Strategy, by the Carl Zeiss Foundation, and by the Helmholtz Association started January 1st, 2019.
Prof. Dr. Martin Wegener
Karlsruhe Institute of Technology
martin.wegener@kit.edu
Prof. Dr. Christine Selhuber-Unkel
Heidelberg University
selhuber@uni-heildeberg.de
Vision of the Cluster
3D Matter Made to Order is reaching for finer, faster and more.
The vision of the Cluster is to establish scalable digital three-dimensional (3D) Additive Manufacturing reaching all the way from the molecular, via the nanometer and micrometer, to the macroscopic scale. This vision is nothing less than the ultimate digitization of 3D manufacturing and material processing. The approach materializes digital information into functional materials, devices, and systems “made to order”, at the push of a button by tabletop instruments. Long before products enter the end-consumer market, previously inaccessible scientific applications in the natural, life, and technical sciences will be enabled. These applications are thus an integral part of the Cluster.
