Soon, it will be possible  to make very small optical components for complex computers, thanks to the ability of scientists to develop a way to 3D print objects using glass. Researchers from Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) in Germany developed a process using glass for additive manufacturing techniques, commonly known as 3D printing. 

They could achieve this with the process of Stereolithography which is a form of 3D printing used for creating models, prototypes, patterns and production parts in a layer by layer fashion using photopolymerisation, a process by which light causes chains of molecules to link, forming polymers.

This is the first time that the  variety of 3D-printing techniques have been used on glass. Earlier, it  has been used on polymers or metals, but never on glass.

The 3D-formed glass can be used, for instance, in data technology. The next plus one generation of computers will use light, which requires complicated processor structures. Researchers said that  3D technology could be used to make small, complex structures out of a large number of very small optical components of different orientations.