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, increasingly supported by physics-based modeling and data-driven design.

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 establishing scalable digital 3D Additive Manufacturing from the macroscale to the micro-, nano-, and molecular scale, combining advanced materials, parallelized manufacturing technologies, and digital blueprints to enable previously inaccessible material structures and functionalities.