Michael Thiel is the Co-Founder and Chief Science Officer of Nanoscribe, a firm which offers 3D printers for the micro- and nanometre scale. He is working on the industrialisation of two-photon polymerisation lithography – a unique light-based 3D printing technology. 

Thiel says he and his team have demonstrated the printing of photonic interconnects on chips and fibres and found very low losses in these connections. 

“It was surprising,” Thiel says, “how much un-matched demand there is in the industry and how much we can provide here with our technology.”