Lithography-based metal manufacturing is an adaptation of the vat polymerization technique to metal manufacturing. Vat polymerization, which uses a photosensitive resin as the build material, is one of the oldest additive manufacturing techniques that was used for rapid prototyping almost 30 years ago. In LMM, metal powder is mixed with the custom-engineered resin binder, and thin layers of slurry are subjected to laser photo-curing to build 3D objects layer by layer. The green part will then be subjected to debinding and sintering. Compared to other green compact printing techniques, LMM has the advantages of making parts with excellent surface finish, uniform microstructure, and precision dimensional control.

The U of U and IPX team apply LMM technology to produce titanium alloy parts.