Additive manufacturing used in life changing operation


Surgeons at Morriston Hospital in Swansea, Wales, have successfully repaired a man’s cheek bone and eye socket, which were damaged during a motorcycle crash, using additive manufacturing. By taking a CT scan of Stephen Power’s head, the team was able to create a 3D model and accurately build a piece that would hold Power’s facial bones correctly. The team was a collaboration of members of Centre of Applied Reconstructive Technologies in Surgery (Cartis), the Surgical and Prosthetic Design team at PDR, Cardiff Metropolitan University, and the MaxilloFacial Unit at the hospital. It comprised surgeons, design engineers and prosthetics experts. The CT scan was used to mirror the unaffected side of Power’s face on the other; this allowed the team to design guides that allowed them to cut and position the bones, as well as being the perfect fit for the patient. The parts were


‘ The ability to match a part accurately to a CT scan is increasing the success of implants’


manufactured by a Belgian company, and the surgical cutting and the cobalt chrome alloy placement guides were produced on a Renishaw machine. Renishaw is the only UK company to process metal for additive manufacturing purposes. Additive manufacturing, which uses lasers to melt metal powders, has been used in certain aspects of medicine before now, but its frequency is becoming ever higher. The ability to match a part accurately to a CT


scan is increasing the success and quality of implant operations. The surgeons also said that this process of manufacturing allows for a much higher degree of accuracy and involved much less guesswork than previous surgeries. Power had been motorcycling when he was involved in an accident in Llantwit Major, near Cardiff. He suffered severe injuries to his head and face, broke both arms, and his right leg required a bone graft.


Lasers convert radio waves to light signals


A group of researchers from The Niels Bohr Institute has outlined a successful attempt to convert radio signals into optical pulses that can be transmitted over optic cables using lasers. The work was outlined in a letter to the journal Nature. The researchers believe it could lead to reduced noise and better quality MRI scans, and will hugely benefit stellar observations, as the technique can detect very weak radio signals.


The technique uses an antenna to detect radio waves and passes the signal onto a capacitor containing an aluminium-coated silicon nitride nanomembrane. This layer fluctuates in the presence of an electric field from the radio wave signal. A laser is then directed at the sheet and, by measuring a change


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in the beam’s light waves, the fluctuations can be recorded and transmitted along a fibre optic cable. The device doesn’t need to be cooled to reduce noise meaning it can operate at room temperature. By confining the nanomembrane within a vacuum it behaves as if it was at 2°K (-271°C); this drastically reduces noise from thermal excitement of the atoms and electrons. Also by using a laser to measure the fluctuations, all of the photons are identical, and the team says this means there is virtually no quantum noise.


The reduced noise at convenient temperatures makes this device sensitive, even to the weakest of radio waves. This opens the technology up to new research in space science, medical imaging, and more.


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