Micro-Scale Ceramic 3D Printing
No Compromise on Material Properties

BMF’s AL alumina ceramic combines the extreme hardness, thermal stability, and chemical resistance of sintered alumina with the geometric freedom of micro 3D printing — enabling complex ceramic parts at resolutions not possible with traditional ceramic manufacturing.

Why Ceramic?

Ceramic materials occupy a performance space that polymers can’t reach. When an application demands resistance to high temperatures, aggressive chemicals, or electrical insulation at the highest level — ceramic is the material of choice.

Traditional ceramic manufacturing methods — pressing, casting, machining — impose serious design limitations. Complex internal geometries, fine features, and small-batch production are difficult or impossible to achieve cost-effectively.

BMF’s PµSL technology changes that. By using photopolymerization to cure a high-density alumina slurry layer by layer, and sintering the green body to near-theoretical density, BMF delivers ceramic micro parts with the precision your application demands.

AL Alumina Ceramic

High-Purity Alumina. Micro-Scale Precision.

BMF’s AL ceramic is a 99.99%-pure alumina material processed through a ceramic stereolithography workflow and sintered to 99.5% theoretical density. The result is a part that retains the full mechanical, thermal, and electrical properties of sintered alumina — at feature sizes only achievable through micro 3D printing.

Key benefits: ​

  • High temp​
  • High strength​
  • High stiffness​
  • Chemical resistance

Target applications/industries:

Where Precision Ceramic Performs

Medical Devices Alumina’s biocompatibility, chemical resistance, and hardness make it a well-established material for medical device components. Micro 3D printing enables complex geometries — internal channels, fine features, custom structures — that support next-generation device development and research.

Electronics & RF/Microwave High electrical resistivity (10¹⁴ Ω·cm) and thermal conductivity (32 W/m·K) make AL ceramic well-suited for electronic substrates, insulators, and RF components. Micro-scale printing enables the fine geometries required for antennas, waveguides, and filter structures where conventional machining falls short.

Tooling, Casings & Industrial Compressive strength of 2300 MPa and resistance to chemical attack make alumina ceramic a strong candidate for tooling, housings, and components operating in harsh environments. The ability to print complex geometries without hard tooling reduces lead times for low-volume industrial applications.

AL Alumina Ceramic Material Properties

PURITY (%) SOLIDS LOADING (vol%) DYNAMIC VISCOSITY (Pa•s) THEORETICAL DENSITY (g/cm) RELATIVE DENSITY (%) THREE-POINT BENDING STRENGTH (MPa) SURFACE ROUGHNESS Ra (μm) YOUNG‘S MODULUS (GPa) SPECIFIC ELECTRICAL RESISTIVITY (Ω•cm) COEFFICIENT OF THERMAL EXPANSION (ppm/K) THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY (W/(m•K))
PURITY (%)
99.8
SOLIDS LOADING (vol%)
50
DYNAMIC VISCOSITY (Pa•s)
10
THEORETICAL DENSITY (g/cm)
3.99
RELATIVE DENSITY (%)
99
THREE-POINT BENDING STRENGTH (MPa)
400
SURFACE ROUGHNESS Ra (μm)
<0.5
YOUNG‘S MODULUS (GPa)
300
SPECIFIC ELECTRICAL RESISTIVITY (Ω•cm)
≈1014
COEFFICIENT OF THERMAL EXPANSION (ppm/K)
7-8
THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY (W/(m•K))
32

Request a Benchmark Part

We’d be happy to manufacture a benchmark part so you can assess our quality.

Request a Benchmark part

Ready to Print in Ceramic?

Whether you’re developing a new device, qualifying a process, or exploring what’s possible with micro-scale ceramic manufacturing — BMF can help.

Request a Benchmark Part

Contact Us

Download the Data Sheet

As a current BMF customer, we’ve been thrilled with the performance of our microArch S130 to support our work in micro-printing ceramics - providing the resolution, accuracy and precision necessary for our parts. As the first customer of the new microArch S230, the next generation 2µm system, we are excited to utilize the enhancements of the platform to increase our part capacity with the larger build volume and speed up our printing times. We are looking forward to continuing to work with the BMF team and their line of micro-precision 3D printers to support our micro part needs.

– Toby Schaedler, Manager, Architected Materials and Structures Department at HRL Laboratories, LLC