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Researchers at Cornell University have developed a new way to 3D print porous metals with unusual properties, including superconductivity.
Published in Nature Communications, their study introduces a “one-pot” printing process that allows materials to organize themselves into ordered structures across several scales, from atomic lattices to millimeter-sized printed shapes.
The team focused on transition metals such as niobium and titanium, which can form oxides and nitrides used in electronics, catalysis, energy storage, and superconducting devices. Producing these materials with precise, porous structures has usually required slow, multi-step procedures.
Led by Ulrich Wiesner, Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at Cornell, the researchers instead designed inks made from block copolymers, molecules that naturally arrange themselves into repeating patterns. When mixed with metal precursors, these inks could be printed and then converted into crystalline oxides or nitrides through carefully controlled heating.
Alongside Cornell, the study also saw contributions from Boston University, Brookhaven National Laboratory, University of Grenoble Alpes, and National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).
3D printing unlocks tunable superconducting metals
A key challenge was keeping the delicate pores from collapsing during heating. The team solved this by fine-tuning the heating steps so the tiny pores survived as the material crystallized. The final products combined three levels of structure: atomic lattices from the metals, nanoscale pores about 4 nm wide, and larger printed shapes such as stacked grids and helices.
Among the achievements were the first free-standing helical structures of porous oxides and nitrides. These were made by printing into a soft support material, which was later removed without damaging the shapes. Tests showed record surface areas for compound superconductors: about 298 m²/g for oxides and 129 m²/g for nitrides. Large surface areas are valuable in technologies like catalysis and sensing, where reactions happen on exposed surfaces.
The superconducting results were especially notable. Niobium nitride, a type-II superconductor that normally becomes superconducting around 17 K, behaves differently when made in this porous form. The onset of superconductivity varied depending on processing, sometimes lower than bulk (7–15 K), but the big breakthrough was much higher upper critical magnetic fields.
In some samples these fields reached 40–50 T, more than double the usual 10–20 T range. Titanium nitride showed similar improvements, though the team stressed these were early, non-optimized tests.
These gains came from confining electrons within the thin pore walls shaped by the block copolymers. By changing the size of the polymers, the researchers could tune the thickness of these walls and with it the superconducting properties. This means a property normally considered fixed in a material could actually be adjusted through the design of the printing ink.
Because the method uses off-the-shelf polymers, chemicals, and standard 3D printers, the researchers believe it could spread quickly. They say it could link fields that rarely overlap, such as 3D printing, porous materials, and quantum materials research. Potential applications include better catalysts, improved energy storage materials, and parts for superconducting magnets and microelectronics.
By showing that one printing process can create materials with features from nanometers to millimeters, the team demonstrated a path toward scalable manufacturing of porous transition metal compounds with customized properties. Their results highlight how controlling structure at multiple levels can unlock new performance from familiar materials.
Expanding superconductivity through 3D printing
Cornell’s work is part of a growing wave of research exploring how 3D printing can reshape superconductors in very different ways.
In March, Northwestern University and Fermilab researchers created a two-step method to 3D print single-crystal superconductors from yttrium barium copper oxide (YBCO), overcoming the limits of both brittle single crystals and weak polycrystalline versions.
For this study, the team printed detailed polycrystalline structures from an oxide-based ink, then use a top-seeded melt growth process at 1090°C with added Y123, Y211, cerium oxide, and an NdBCO seed to reorganize the material into a single crystal. This eliminates grain boundaries and dramatically improves performance, carrying 66 times more current at 77K and 180 times more at 10K, while allowing complex shapes like coils and shielding tubes.
Nine years ago, University of Melbourne Professor Daniel Creedon showed that 3D printing can produce superconducting microwave cavities matching the electrical performance of conventional ones. Vital for particle accelerators and precision measurement, these cavities were fabricated from aluminum using selective laser melting, with and without 12% silicon.
Both became superconducting at 1.2K, and polishing followed by a 770K heat treatment doubled their quality factor. The results suggest that with further refinement, 3D printed superconducting cavities could become practical for large-scale applications.
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Featured image shows a schematic of the “one-pot” processes to prepare transition metal oxides and nitrides with periodic structures on three different length scales. Image via Cornell University.
