US 2002/0175973 A1Published application

Bubble-jet type ink-jet printhead

OwnerJae-ho Moon, Dae-soon Lim +1inventors

InventorsJae-ho Moon, Dae-soon Lim, O-hyun Baek

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Abstract

A bubble-jet type ink-jet printhead is provided. When forming a doughnut-shaped bubble, the printhead allows bubbles to be first grown around the heater that surrounds the central axis of the nozzle at regular angles followed by the formation of another bubble between the earlier formed bubbles, thereby forming a larger doughnut-shaped bubble. Accordingly, this can prevent the formation of an unbalanced doughnut-shaped bubble due to variations in local resistance of the heater, which may be caused by a process error. Furthermore, the printhead allows the center of the doughnut-shaped bubble to be set on the central axis of the nozzle thus causing a droplet formed within the doughnut-shaped bubble to be ejected in a normal manner, that is, in a direction vertical to the nozzle plate.

Claims12

Dependent claims

A bubble-jet ink jet printhead, comprising:

a nozzle plate perforated by a plurality of nozzles through which ink is ejected, each of said plurality nozzles having a central axis, said nozzle plate having a top surface and a bottom surface opposite to said top surface;
a substrate supporting said nozzle plate, wherein a common ink cavity supplying said ink to each of said plurality of the nozzles is disposed between the substrate and said nozzle plate;
a heating element surrounding said central axis of at least one of said plurality of said nozzles, said heating element having a plurality of high resistance portions and low resistance portions, wherein said low resistance portions and high resistance portions are positioned alternately along a circumference of said heating element;
and
a pair of electrodes electrically connected to said heating element to apply current to said heating element.

2 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.