1. Field of Invention
The invention relates to a printhead for inkjet printers and, in particular, to an inkjet printhead structure that has an internal fast ink supply design.
2. Related Art
The widely accepted inkjet chips are either thermal or piezoelectric. Owing to the competition among similar products, researchers are forced to make further improvement and progress in order to make the latest products satisfy new needs, including the inkjet speed and quality. Such things rely on breakthroughs in the new structure design and the material development.
To increase the inkjet speed, one also has to increase the allowable inkjet frequency. The printing quality depends upon the improvement in the ink density. However, it is found that each time an ink droplet is ejected out of a nozzle, roughly 400 μs is needed for new ink to replenish from the ink channel and for the impact to settle down. This phenomenon in turn affects the inkjet energy controls on the next ejection or nearby nozzle ejections, causing instability in the inkjet quality. Researchers further find that such replenish impact induces cross-talks among nearby nozzles. Making the ink channel long and thin may reduce such cross-talks. For example, the ink channel disclosed in the U.S. Pat. No. 4,882,595 uses exactly this idea to ease the replenish impact within 400 μs.
Although the long and thin ink channel design helps reducing cross-talks among adjacent nozzles, nevertheless, they are not completely avoided. On the other hand, the channel pressure is considerably reduced to slow down the ink supply speed, resulting in worse printing quality and lower inkjet frequency.
To prevent the pressure-lowering problem due to the long and thin ink channel, the U.S. Pat. No. 5,308,442 shortens the ink channel and forms a dipped area between the edge of the main ink supply channel and the ink channel. The border of the dipped area is close to the inlet of the ink channel so that ink can be supplied more quickly.
The invention provides an auxiliary ink supply channel so that more ink can be supplied at a closer distance to the inlet, making the ink supply speed faster.
It is an objective of the invention to provide the structure of an auxiliary ink supply channel so that more ink can be stored at a closer distance to the inlet of the ink channel, thereby lowering the pressure and making the ink supply speed faster. The disclosed structure of a printhead includes a silicon substrate, a first barrier layer, a second barrier layer, and a nozzle plate. The silicon substrate has a plurality of thermal elements and a main ink supply channel, each of the thermal elements being in an firing chamber of the first barrier layer and in fluid communications with the main ink supply channel through ink channels. The top of each ink firing elements is aligned with a nozzle on the nozzle plate. To satisfy the need for high-frequency ink ejection, the invention utilizes the second barrier layer so that ink has a larger channel provided in the perpendicular direction due to the auxiliary ink supply channel. More ink can gather at a closer distance to the inlet of the ink channel, making the ink supply speed faster.
Further scope of the applicability of the present invention will become apparent from the detailed description given hereinafter. However, it should be understood that the detailed description and specific examples, while indicating preferred embodiments of the invention, are given by way of illustration only, since various changes and modifications within the spirit and scope of the invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art from this detailed description.
The invention will become more fully understood from the detailed description given hereinbelow and the accompanying drawings, which are given by way of illustration only, and thus are not limitative of the present invention, and wherein:
With reference to
The firing chambers 22 and the nozzles 31 are not necessarily disposed in straight lines. The pattern shown in
First Embodiment
To speed up ink supply and to avoid the pattern shown in
The silicon substrate 10 has a slot penetrating through the substrate to form its main ink supply channel, which leads to the ink cartridge of the printhead. The ink is thus able to flow from the main ink supply channel edge 11 through the ink channel inlet 23 into the firing chamber 22. When the ink is heated by the thermal element 21, it is ejected out of the nozzle 31 on the nozzle plate 30. New standby ink is then supplied from the main ink supply channel. At the moment, part of the ink flows from the end 4101 of the auxiliary ink supply channel 41 into the firing chamber 22.
With reference to
Second Embodiment
As shown in
In summary, the invention utilizes the second barrier layer 40 to provide an auxiliary ink supply channel 41 to provide a large ink flux in the perpendicular direction, so that more ink can be closely stored near the ink channel inlet. This structure can effectively reduce the pressure drop and increase the ink supply speed and the upper limit of the ejection frequency. If the opening of the ink channel is further restricted to minimize the span between adjacent nozzles 31, then the ejection point density and printing quality can be increased.
Although the invention has been described with reference to specific embodiments, this description is not meant to be construed in a limiting sense. Various modifications of the disclosed embodiments as well as alternative embodiments, will be apparent to persons skilled in the art. For example, the main ink supply channel can be moved to the side of the silicon substrate. The upper and lower sides of the first barrier layer 20 can be each provided with a second barrier layer, forming a pair of auxiliary ink supply channels 41 and thus providing a larger cross section for ink flow in the vertical direction, as shown in
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
---|---|---|---|
90121111 A | Aug 2001 | TW | national |
This application is a Divisional of application Ser. No. 10/213,076, filed on Aug. 7, 2002, now U.S. Pat. No. 6,682,177, the entire contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference and for which priority is claimed under 35 U.S.C. § 120; and this application claims priority of Application No. 090121111 filed in Taiwan, R.O.C. on Aug. 28, 2001 under 35 U.S.C. § 119.
Number | Name | Date | Kind |
---|---|---|---|
4882595 | Trueba et al. | Nov 1989 | A |
5198834 | Childers et al. | Mar 1993 | A |
5308442 | Taub et al. | May 1994 | A |
6499835 | Chee et al. | Dec 2002 | B1 |
Number | Date | Country | |
---|---|---|---|
20040109042 A1 | Jun 2004 | US |
Number | Date | Country | |
---|---|---|---|
Parent | 10213076 | Aug 2002 | US |
Child | 10724890 | US |