Thermal printing technology

H. Schofield, 5th Mnnual European ICG Conference on Thermal Printing Technology, Amsterdam, Nethedands, 1989. 

Introduction Printing Technologies Nonimpact Printing Technologies Thermal Printing Technologies... 

Thermal Printing. Thermal printing is a generic name for methods that mark paper or other media with text and pictures by imagewise heating of special-purpose consumable media. Common technologies are direct thermal thermal, ie, wax, transfer and dye-sublimation, ie, diffusion, transfer. Properties and preferred appHcations are diverse, but apparatus and processes are similar (87—89). 

This topic is covered in detail in Section 5.6, but a brief mention of ink-jet printing is warranted in order to compare and contrast the colorants and technology to laser printing and thermal printing. 

R. Bradbury, Thermal Printing in Chemistry and Technology of Printing and Imaging Systems, P. Gregory (ed.), Blackie, London, 1996. 

Meyer J, Bazilevsky AV, Rozhkov AN. (1997) Effect of polymeric additives on thermal ink jets. Proceeding of the International Conference on Digital Printing Technologies 675-680. 

The later developed thermal inkjet technology has the advantage of being able to position a drop on demand. Ink drops are not emitted continuously but only when needed for printing. This property eliminates the need for additional systems to capture and recirculate... 

There are two main approaches to thermal printing, direct thermal and transfer thermography. Some examples of direct thermal printing were discussed, above, in the section on thermally developed silver systems. Current applications for this technology are for the most part... 

Printing technologies that employ the controlled application of thermal energy via a contacting printhead to activate either physical or chemical image formation processes come under this general classification. 

Cui, X., Boland, T., 2009. Human microvasculature fabrication using thermal inkjet printing technology. Biomaterials 30, 6221—6227. 

Thermal transfer printing, similar to the laser and ink-jet printing technologies, has existed since the 1930s and is used in relatively specialized applications. 

Despite the dynamic of recent years, by no means can technological development be considered to have reached its conclusion. Ongoing research is pushing further miniaturization and expansion across the areas of application, for example by reduction in structure size, enhanced qualification of thermoset materials for the LDS process, and productive print technologies for additive conductor metallization, or the manufacture of thermally conductive materials for LED applications. 

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