US 6,184,913 B2Granted

Thermal head and method of manufacturing the same

AssigneeTDK Corporation

InventorsKatsuto Nagano, Masato Susukida, Yoshio Saita, Jun Hirabayashi, Jun Hagiwara

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Abstract

A thermal head including a protection layer having mutually opposed first and second surfaces, said first surface having a printing surface which is brought into contact with a heat sensitive record medium and is protruded from the remaining portion of the first surface of the protection layer, a heat generating sections including resistors and electrodes connected to the electrodes and provided on said second surface of the protection layer at said protruded printing surface, a heat control section including a heat storage layer and a heat conduction layer and provided on said heat generating section, and a driving IC connected to said electrodes. In order to improve the mechanical strength of the thermal head, a reinforcing layer made of a glass is provided on said first surface of the protection layer except for said printing surface such that a surface of said reinforcing layer is not higher than said first surface of the protection layer at said protruded printing surface.

Claims31

Dependent claims

A thermal head comprising:

a protection layer having mutually opposed first and second surfaces, said first and second surface being protruded toward a printing surface which is brought into contact with a heat sensitive record medium and is protruded from the remaining portion of the first surface of the protection layer and a part of said second surface being also protruded toward the printing surface according to the first surface;
a heat generating section provided on said second surface of the protection layer at said protruded portion and including heat generating resistors and electrodes connected to the heat generating resistors for generating heat to be transferred to said heat sensitive record medium through said printing surface of the protection layer;
a driving circuit connected to said electrodes of the heat generating section for supplying a heating electric power to the electrodes;
and
a reinforcing layer made of a material different from a material of said protection layer and provided on said first surface of the protection layer except for said printing surface such that a surface of said reinforcing layer is not higher than said first surface of the protection layer at said protruded printing surface.

2 more elements

A method of manufacturing a thermal head comprising the steps of:

forming a groove in a surface of a preliminary substrate;
forming a protection layer on an inner surface of said groove as well as on said surface of the preliminary substrate, a portion of said protection layer provided on the inner surface of the groove constituting a printing surface and said protection layer being made of a material different from said preliminary substrate;
forming a heat generating section on said protection layer at least at said groove, said heat generating section including heat generating resistors and electrodes connected to the resistors;
forming a heat control section at least on said heat generating section, said heat control section including at least a heat storage layer;
and
forming a reinforcing layer by removing a part of said preliminary substrate such that at least a part of said printing surface of the protection layer is exposed.

3 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.