We end this year with a startup coming from the CEA, the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission: AM3L. The company is a starup that specializes in porous metamaterials produced by metal 3D printing. Its goal is to use additive manufacturing to produce structures with fully customized, controlled, and verified architectures. For now, it offers two flagship products: shock absorbers and functional filters. The company relies on metal additive manufacturing to precisely control the porosity of each part and thus make use of the controlled voids inside each component. The focus is not on density but on the porous nature of the structure. This allows AM3L to manipulate the internal architecture at the millimetric or sub-millimetric scale and to offer a wide range of functionalities within a single part, such as rigidity, reinforcement, and flexibility. We met with its co-founder and CTO, Timothée Delacroix, to learn more about the startup’s origins, daily operations, and ambitions.
3DN: Could you introduce yourself and explain your connection to additive manufacturing?
I am Timothée Delacroix, co-founder and CTO of AM3L. I hold a doctorate in engineering with a focus on additive manufacturing, and I have been working for almost seven years on laser powder bed fusion, with several patents and scientific publications related to this technology. I discovered metal additive manufacturing at Safran, where I was introduced to the industrial challenges of the process. I then completed my PhD at CEA Paris-Saclay, contributing to the technological maturation of the process and later to the development of 3D architected materials. Together with my associate Hicham Maskrot, co-founder and President of AM3L, we received support from the CEA to build on the expertise of the laboratory he led, structure a startup creation project, and bridge the gap between research, demonstrators, and industrial solutions. Today, with our team, additive manufacturing is our daily tool, and we operate at the intersection of design, material, process, and functional performance: how to adjust a material, its porosity, and its internal architecture to absorb an impact, filter a fluid, or manage heat flow.
CTO Timothée Delacroix (left) with President Hicham Maskrot (right) of AM3L.
3DN: What is AM3L? Why was the company created?
AM3L is a spin-off from CEA Paris-Saclay, founded in 2023, with expertise in porous metamaterials produced by metal 3D printing. We design and manufacture custom-architected metal structures for demanding sectors such as nuclear, defense, transportation, and energy.
Driven by Hicham, the idea behind AM3L was to transform the laboratory’s expertise into an agile organisation capable of starting from a very concrete need and delivering a finished, functional part ready to be integrated into an existing system. At a time when much of the work in metal additive manufacturing focused mainly on producing parts that were as dense as possible, we chose to take the opposite approach and fully leverage the potential of porosity and architectural design. Our mission can be summed up as follows: using the “controlled void” inside metal parts as a true performance lever rather than a flaw. The objective is not only to demonstrate that this is possible but to deliver parts with performance, repeatability, and traceability levels that meet the requirements of our target sectors. To achieve this, we draw on the experience accumulated at the CEA in qualification, testing, and certification, ensuring that these metamaterials do not remain mere demonstrators but become real industrial solutions. This is now a reality with our first shock absorber, which was qualified this year by the Nuclear Safety Authority.
AM3L helps to produce custom architected metal structures.
3DN: What is a 3D architected material?
A 3D architected material is a material whose internal architecture is designed and controlled at the millimetric or sub-millimetric scale, instead of relying on a solid block or on purely random porosity. In practical terms, instead of having a simple solid metal cube, part or all of it is replaced by a network of repeated cells (lattices, periodic structures, TPMS, etc.), for which the patterns, cell sizes, strut or wall thicknesses, and spatial arrangement can all be controlled. With the same base material, you can achieve very different behaviors: highly deformable for shock absorption, highly permeable with controlled pressure drops for fluid flow, or on the contrary rigid and lightweight for structural or tooling applications, and much more. What matters is no longer just the composition of the material, but the way solid and void are arranged in space.
3DN: Why do you use this type of material in additive manufacturing?
Additive manufacturing is one of the few processes that can actually produce these kinds of internal architectures with a high level of control in industrial materials. If it is used only to print solid blocks that could have been machined or cast, the real potential is lost. Where AM truly makes sense is precisely in its ability to finely control solid and void inside parts.
AM3L works with laser powder bed fusion machines.
The advantage of 3D architected materials in additive manufacturing is also the ability to combine multiple functions within a single component. One area can be optimized for protection, another to allow fluid flow or heat exchange, and a third to provide rigidity or support mechanical loads. By adjusting the local architecture, we can address different design challenges with a single part, rather than stacking multiple components, interfaces, and assemblies. This simplifies the mechanics, reduces operations and risks, and makes qualification easier, since we work with a single material, process, and part. Finally, it allows optimization of the performance/mass/space trade-off. In many industries, every kilogram and every centimeter counts. Our metamaterials sometimes allow better performance with less material and less space.
3DN: What processes does AM3L use?
Currently, we work exclusively with metal additive manufacturing, specifically laser powder bed fusion (LPBF), on industrial Nikon SLM Solutions machines, our partner. This process currently offers the best compromise between geometric resolution, mechanical properties, and repeatability for this type of structure. The open software architecture of these machines allows us to finely adjust nearly all manufacturing parameters and tailor the behavior of our metamaterials, even once the CAD geometry is fixed.
3DN: How do you control the quality of your materials?
Quality is ensured across the entire value chain: design, process, powder, parts, and test samples. We have built an internal database linking design, manufacturing parameters, and resulting properties, along with design rules and sensitivity studies that allow us to select robust process windows for each application. In parallel, we control the material and process (powder, monitoring production, metallurgical checks when necessary) and systematically work with dedicated samples or demonstrators for the intended function: energy absorption, permeability, etc. These samples are tested and compared against our reference database, which ensures alignment between design, process, and real-world performance, allowing us to deliver solutions that are both high-performing and reproducible.
3DN: What are AM3L’s future projects?
In energy absorption, the goal is to build on our first qualified cases and expand to other markets with similar protection needs, particularly in defense, rail, aerospace, and space. We are also exploring “4D” dampers using shape-memory alloys, with recoverable structures capable of returning to their original geometry after impact and functioning over multiple cycles.
We are also developing a new generation of porous metal molds for packaging and bio-based materials: architected tooling that improves suction and fluid evacuation, reduces clogging, and aims to make sustainable packaging solutions competitive as an alternative to plastic.
Finally, we are strengthening our digital tools by structuring our design-process-property database and decision-support tools to shorten the path from a given specification to an optimal metallic metamaterial solution.
3DN: Any final words for our readers?
If you work on systems where safety, compactness, or energy efficiency are key concerns, there comes a point where simply “adding solid material” is no longer enough. Focusing on how voids are organized inside parts can open design possibilities that conventional solutions cannot offer. Our mission is not to “do additive manufacturing” for its own sake, but to deliver functional, certifiable, architected metal parts that perform as promised in real conditions. If you are wondering whether this type of solution could make sense in your context, even without a clear idea of its form, we would be happy to discuss it! You can visit our website HERE.
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*All Photo Credits: AM3L