T-jet: a novel thermal inkjet printhead with monolithically fabricated nozzle plate on SOI wafer

Baek, Seungin; Lim, Hyejin; Song, Hyoung Woon; Kim, Y.S.; Bae, Kisoon; Cho, C.H.; Lee, C.S.; Shin, JaeWook; Shin, Seong‐Ho; Kuk, Keon; Oh, Youngtek

doi:10.1109/sensor.2003.1215356

Cited by 5 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…Using the described approach, the simulation results of simple two-dimensional devices presented in the literature [3], [6], [31] could be reproduced easily by using the volume of fluid (VOF) method [32] including surface tension like implemented in ACE+. Afterwards the more complicated 3-D model of an Olivetti I-Jet printhead, as displayed in Fig.…”

Section: B Resulting Bubble Volumementioning

confidence: 99%

“…In a very long tail, the tail breaks in some satellites, whereas in very short ones, the tail contracts with the droplet so that no satellites occur. Beyond increasing the print resolution [5]- [7] and realizing a monolithic printhead [3], [4], preventing satellite droplets is an important part of current research and development activities [8], [9].…”

Section: E Ink Propertiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Currently the bubble jet printer stands out with low manufacturing costs at comparable print quality. The aim of manufacturers and many researchers is the further optimization concerning maximum print frequency, active area of the printhead, resolution, and quality of ejected droplets [3]- [9]. This requires a further miniaturization and improvement of the printhead geometry including fluid channels, heaters, and nozzles to achieve an ideal printhead performance.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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One Inch Thermal Bubble Jet Printhead With Laser Structured Integrated Polyimide Nozzle Plate

Lindemann

Ashauer

et al. 2007

J. Microelectromech. Syst.

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This paper reports on a novel 1/3 and 1-in thermal bubble jet printhead with integrated nozzle plate. The printheads are made by a combination of a standard printhead substrate with a new three-dimensional (3-D) structured polyimide nozzle plate avoiding a three-layer assembly known from other commercial printheads. The 50-m-(respectively, 75-m)-thick nozzle plate contains the fluidic channels and 208 (respectively, 312) nozzles with minimum lateral dimensions of 10 m. The misalignment of the two laser structured layers has proved to be less than 1 m. The nozzle plate is assembled with the substrate using a 3-m-high adhesive layer with an alignment accuracy of 5 m. The integrated nozzle plate leads to a better control of the printhead geometry and saves one processing step in production. A 1/3-in as well as a 1-in design were studied because it was not sure if the 1-in design survives the fabrication of the silicon substrate. The powder blasting of the ink feeding slot was considered as critical process step. To predict the effect of misalignments or variations in the adhesive layer during the assembling process on the characteristic inkjet parameters-like droplet volume, droplet velocity, droplet quality, or print frequency-computational fluid dynamic (CFD) simulations have been performed. For these purposes, a fully three-dimensional model was set up using the volume of fluid method. The presented CFD model in combination with the applied pressure boundary condition substituting the behavior of the exploding vapor bubble provides a valuable possibility to simulate media variations, actuation variations, as well as 3-D related geometrical variations. The differences in ejected droplet volume and droplet velocity between simulation and experiment are below 5%. Conclusively, the innovations presented in this paper are as follows. The presented printhead layout designed by Olivetti I-Jet provides an improved print frequency compared to commercially available printhead designs. The 1-in integrated nozzle plate and the required innovative fabrication technology offers a tripling of the printing speed compared to a conventional 1/3-in design only by means of an increased printing area. The new fabrication and packaging approach offers the reduction of processing and assembling steps leading to a better control of the printhead geometry. The CFD simulations provide a three-dimensional approach to estimate the influences of manufacturing and adjustment tolerances.Index Terms-Bubble jet printhead, computational fluid dynamic (CFD) simulation, inkjet, integrated nozzle plate, laser machining, volume of fluid (VOF).

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