Ink supply structure for inkjet printhead

Details Ink supply structure for inkjet printhead Ink supply structure for inkjet printhead

2002-08-07

2004-01-27

Meier, Stephen (Department: 2853)

Incremental printing of symbolic information

Ink jet

Ejector mechanism

C347S065000

Reexamination Certificate

active

06682177

ABSTRACT:

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
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 &mgr;s 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 &mgr;s.
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.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
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.


REFERENCES:
patent: 4882595 (1989-11-01), Trueba et al.
patent: 5198834 (1993-03-01), Childers et al.
patent: 5308442 (1994-05-01), Taub et al.

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