Table 1.

Feature comparison of E-3DP and L-3DP techniques in relation to functional biomedical microdevice fabrication.

Features	Extrusion-based 3D-printing (E-3DP)			Light-based 3D-printing (L-3DP)
	Nozzle	FDM	MJM	SLA	MPP	DLP
Operating principle	Controlled deposition of flowable materials via nozzle	Filamentous deposition of thermoplastic polymers via nozzle	Deposition of crosslinkable polymers via inkjet heads	Raster-scanned laser photopolymerization of photosensitive substrates	Photopolymerization via nonlinear multiple photon absorption	2D cross-sectional photopolymerization of photosensitive substrates
X/Y Resolution	≈5–200 μm	≈5–200 μm	≈50 μm/100 s of DPI	Light-spot-dependent; can be sub-micrometer	Can defeat diffraction limit; sub-100 nm	Projected-pixel-size-dependent; can reach 1 μm
Speed	≈500 μm s−1 to 24 mm s−1	≈sub-mm s−1 to 6 mm s−1	≈1–40 mm s−1	≈100s μm s−1 - several cm s−1	≈80 nm s−1 to 2 cm s−1	≈25–1000 mm min−1
Advantages	Can utilize wide variety of materials, including biological	Tabletop form factor and cheap materials	May print multiple materials	Laser light enables high-resolution prints at reasonable speeds	Can produce much smaller structures compared to other L-3DP techniques	2D projection enables higher throughput compared to raster-scanning
	Print resolution limited by extrusion aperture and motion controller precision			Print resolution can suffer nonspecific photopolymerization due to light leakage into surrounding areas
Limitations	Viscosity of substrate can impact nozzle performance	Circular cross-sections can prevent interfilament and interlayer fusion	Requires sacrificial support materials; removal can be difficult	Limited mainly to UV-sensitive resins; low throughput	Slow speeds limit larger-form-factor fabrication; costly equipment	Prints require large volumes of photo-polymerizable; wasted material can become cost-prohibitive
References	[80,86,100–102]	[80,86,103,104]	[5,80,86,105]	[87,88,106–109]	[87–89,106–109]	[5,82,86]