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The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has built a significant number of temples over the last decade, with many more announced or under construction. BYU engineers have decided to lend a hand by building a bunch of temples on their own — tiny temples that is.

Close up of micro-sized 3D-printed temples

In honor of BYU’s 150th anniversary, electrical engineering professor Greg Nordin and student Callum Galloway have created 150 microscopic replicas of existing LDS temples, all on a 12-by-19 millimeter microchip. Each of these unique temples — 150 different floor plans to celebrate 150 years of BYU — is less than a grain of rice in length.

“When we heard about the sesquicentennial ‘Beacons of Light’ celebration, we thought, can we use this super high-resolution 3D printing capability that we’ve developed to create something special?” Nordin said.

The answer was yes.

Nordin and Calloway used a carbon-backbone-based material for the 3D printing, projecting ultraviolet images one after another to build the different layers of the micro temples. Using a process called photo polymerization, the small molecules in the materials link up in chains and result in recognizable tiny polymer temples.

Among the 150 tiny temples there’s a replica of the Washington D.C. Temple, the St. George Temple, the San Diego Temple, the Provo City Center Temple, and, of course, the Salt Lake Temple.

“These temples probably won’t last 1,000 years, but there are some materials we could use with our 3D printing process that would last that long,” Nordin said. “Maybe we need to get some of those materials.”

Galloway, who was new in Nordin’s lab when the project surfaced, did the research to find the first 150 temples that have unique floor plans. He then developed the project further and was at the heart of the final product.

“It’s rewarding how we can enjoy this technology that we’re using in both an artistic and a spiritual way,” Galloway said. “Engineering is inherently art and the best art and the best engineering are born out of passion. That’s something I see very much in this lab.”

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