  In materials research involving additive manufacturing (AM)-based techniques
for fabrication of a wide variety of materials, the latest trend at present is
to focus largely on 3D printing (3DP) of nanoceramics, which at present is
highly challenging, from both fundamental and industrial viewpoints inspite of
the tremendous versatility offered by these techniques in terms of addressing
design complexities. The two main reasons for the same are: low density and
poor mechanical properties of nanoceramic parts fabricated using 3DP
techniques. The fundamental reason behind the two aforementioned features of
3DP-fabricated nanoceramic parts is the huge extent of microstructural
inhomogeneity arising primarily due to variation in cooling rates during point
by point, line by line or layer by layer deposition methodology followed in 3DP
techniques, leading to a number of defects in the microstructure. Moreover, the
industrial application of nanoceramic parts manufactured using 3DP techniques,
is rather limited, primarily owing to the high manufacturing cost associated
with these nanoceramic parts. Although, in the last ten years, there has been a
considerable volume of work on 3DP-based techniques for manufacturing ceramic
parts with enhanced densities and improved mechanical properties, however,
there is limited understanding on the correlation of microstructure of
3DP-fabricated nanoceramic components with the mechanical properties. The
present review is aimed to review some of the most commonly used 3DP techniques
for the fabrication of nanoceramics and provide an overview of the future
perspectives, associated with the necessity towards developing a systematic
structure-property correlation through correlative characterisation methodology
in these materials.
