Inkjet nozzle applications

Plasma Etching, Fig. 9 SEM micrographs of (a) plane-view nozzle array with circuit layout and (b) cross section of one nozzle for a high-resolution inkjet head application... 

Piezoelectric inkjet is currently the technology of choice for most emerging industrial applications. In this technology, a piezo crystal (commonly lead zirconium titanate) undergoes distortion when an electric field is applied, and this distortion is used to mechanically create a pressure pulse that causes a drop to be ejected from the nozzle (Fig. 3). There are many variations of piezo inkjet architectures including tube, edge, face, moving wall, and piston. 

An important issue for any industrial application of inkjet printing of ceramic inks is the abrasion of the nozzles due to the hardness of the particles. An experiment demonstrating this is shown in Fig. 16. 

Structuring of polymers today is industrially used for the production of nozzles for inkjet printers [19] and to prepare via holes in multichip modules through polyimide (PI) by IBM [20], as well as for many other applications, for example, fabrication of microoptical devices [21] and microfluidic channels [22-25],... 

---