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BIT team achieves meter-scale titanium alloy single-crystal additive manufacturing

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The team of Professor Liu Changmeng at Beijing Institute of Technology pioneered a single-crystal additive manufacturing method based on unsteady pulsating growth of micro-molten pools, achieving meter-scale titanium alloy single-crystal additive manufacturing for the first time. The results were published in Nature on October 21, 2026, in a paper titled "Additive manufacturing ultralong and architected single crystals," with corresponding authors Liu Changmeng, Cui Yinan of Tsinghua University, and Yinmin Morris Wang of the University of California, Los Angeles. The method requires no prefabricated single-crystal seed and can directly grow single crystals up to meter-scale in height and centimeter-scale in diameter from a polycrystalline substrate, using Ti-6Al-4V titanium alloy, commonly used in aerospace, as the model material. The technology is based on a wire-arc manufacturing platform, reducing reliance on dedicated molds and complex precision temperature-control equipment; compared with powder additive manufacturing, wire feedstock also offers a cost advantage. A News & Views commentary published simultaneously in Nature described the work as "creating exciting opportunities for future technological and scientific developments."