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3D Printing Error Leads to Gecko-Inspired Material Breakthrough in South Korea

3D Printing

Business Honor
30 April, 2025

Researchers turn an overcuring flaw into innovative gripping material for robotics and healthcare.

A South Korean research team at Hanyang University has found a new method of using a 3D printing mistake to create new materials with the gecko foot grip ability. The unexpected finding holds potential for soft robotics, medical devices, and other applications that need reversible but strong adhesion material.

The researchers were using a 3D printing method known as Digital Light Processing (DLP), which utilizes light to cure liquid resin into a solid. When they were experimenting, they observed a typical printing defect known as "overcuring," where certain areas of the resin were getting overexposed to light. Instead of seeing it as a defect, scientists went beyond and found that overcuring produced extremely minute, asymmetric structures within the material.

These details were found to be the same as the gecko foot's micro-hairs and allowed them to adhere to the surface without glue. It became possible for scientists to adjust the form and orientation of these microscopic details by means of controlling the angle and quantity of light employed in the printing. This yielded a material whose properties were anisotropic—i.e., whose function depends on the direction of movement, like the gecko foot.

This new method allows one to create materials that are readily capable of gripping and releasing easily, a need in robotics or wearable medical devices, for example. The researchers anticipate that this low-cost, easy-to-deploy method can be used across numerous industries where flexible, precise gripping is necessary.

What started as a printing error became an incredible find, and it proved that even mistakes can lead to fascinating scientific breakthroughs. The study offers a different point of view on 3D printing and how it can replicate nature.