Inkjet Printing Techniques - Essay Example

of the of the of the Inkjet Printing Techniques Introduction Inkjet printing techniques are beingincreasingly employed in mechatronics fabrication. This is on account of their being less expensive and quicker to implement, in contrast to the other options that entail the use of expensive equipment, masks, and a clean room for processing. Mechatronics fabrication, in the context of inkjet printing, is a fairly simple technique; and it provides considerable flexibility, with regard to the substrates and ink materials that can be used (Madou164).

Inkjet printers function, by ejecting a small drop, which is a few picoliters, of ink through a very fine nozzle. This nozzle is connected to an ink reservoir, and places a singly drop of ink at a definite location on the substrate. A commercial inkjet printer’s head has approximately 300 nozzles per inch in the single column variety, and 600 nozzles per inch in the print head with two columns. All these nozzles can release a droplet of ink simultaneously (Madou 165). A few of the inkjet printer manufacturing companies have been able to produce printers that contain 600 nozzles per inch, in a single column.

The inkjet print head is controlled by the software that is supplied by the printer manufacturing company. This software controls a number of parameters, such as ink temperature, ejection speed, print speed and the volume of the ejected drop (Madou 165).Inkjet Printer TypesOut of the several types of inkjet technologies that are available, Thermal inkjet and Piezo-electric printers are used in mechatronics fabrication. The difference between these is the driving force behind the ink ejection.

The principles, upon which these two technologies are based on, are described in the sequel (Madou 165). Thermal Inkjet Printer This method is commonly referred to as a bubble jet. In a thermal inkjet printer, small resistors are utilised to heat a thin ink layer, around 0.1μm, at a heating rate of around 100° C/μsec to achieve of about 340°C. At this temperature, the ink layer is transformed into superheated vapour, which explodes and creates a bubble. This process takes less than 3 μ sec.

Thereafter, this bubble grows, within 3 to 10 μsec, to form an ink drop at the tip of the nozzle. Afterwards, this bubble collapses and the drop descends from the nozzle, within 10 to 20μsec, to deposit on the substrate. The collapsed bubble creates a partial vacuum, which causes fresh ink to be drawn into the resistors, in order to form the next bubble at the nozzle. The time taken for a bubble to form at the nozzle is less than 80µsec at the operating frequency of 12 kHz. It is to be noted that these thermal inkjets, are in no manner related to thermal printers, wherein images are produced, due to the heating of thermal paper (Madou 165).

Piezo-Electrical Inkjet PrintersThe Piezo – Electric technology is employed in the majority of the commercial and industrial inkjet printers. In this mechanism, the ink is ejected onto the substrate, by means of a piezoelectric material attached to a thin vibration plate at the rear of the ink reservoir. Subsequently, a pulse of electric current is applied to this material. The piezoelectric material contracts laterally and the thin vibration plate deflects, which results in the ejection of a singly ink drop, through the nozzle onto the substrate.

The cavity then gets refilled, on account of capillary action, through the inlet (Madou 165). Works CitedMadou, Marc J. Fundamentals of microfabrication: the science of miniaturization . CRC Press, 2002. Print.