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A typical 3D printer squeezes out plastic like a pastry chef piping cream from a bag. Here, instead of plastic, it's light. A laser beam draws in liquid resin, making it solidify at precise points. This creates parts too small to see without a microscope.

Until now, such printers were slow: the beam crawled across the surface like a pen on paper. The new machine changes the game. It projects an entire image at once, like a movie projector. The light is split into millions of tiny mirrors, and every spot solidifies simultaneously. Speed soars to a million voxels per second — imagine filling an entire room with Rubik's Cubes in one evening.

To make the resin solidify instantly, they chose a special catalyst. It prevents neighboring spots from fusing due to heat, just as oil in a pan keeps pancakes from sticking together. So the pattern comes out sharp and the details are even.

The printer has already printed a honeycomb-like lattice and a forest of microscopic pillars. Such structures are needed in optics: they control light better than conventional lenses. Now they can be made quickly and cheaply, like printing photos on an inkjet printer.