Head Design for Novel Ink-Jet Printing using Electrostatic Force

Abstract

The authors developed a printing head with multiple ink ejecting apertures based on novel ink-jet technology, which was reported at the last NIP14 conference. A 4-inch wide printing head was made with this head structure. This ink-jet technology uses electrostatic force and ink containing charged colorants dispersed in a highly resistive solvent.The developed printing head comprises a control substrate and an ink-guide. The control substrate consists of a printed circuit board, and has apertures and control electrodes arranged around each aperture. The ink-guide has a tapered shape with a narrow slit in the tip, like a fountain pen, and is positioned inside the aperture. The ink is carried from the aperture to an ink droplet emitting position by capillary action. The printing head structure makes it possible to stabilize ink ejection and print images at high speed.The 4-inch wide head has 384 ink ejecting apertures which are arranged by 100 dpi and can print 6 pages per minute with a 4” x 6” image with 800 dpi resolution.The authors present a detailed description of the printing head structure, the printing characteristics of the head structure, printed samples, and specifications of the 4-inch wide head, in this paper.