Method of manufacture of a planar thermoelastic bend actuator ink jet printer
AssigneeSilverbrook Research Pty Ltd
InventorKia Silverbrook
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Abstract
This patent describes a method of manufacturing a planar thermoelastic bend actuator ink wherein an array of nozzles are formed on a substrate utilising planar monolithic deposition, lithographic and etching processes. Multiple ink jet heads are formed simultaneously on a single planar substrate such as a silicon wafer. The print heads can be formed utilising standard vlsi/ulsi processing and can include integrated drive electronics formed on the same substrate. The drive electronics preferably being of a CMOS type. In the final construction, ink can be ejected from the substrate substantially normal to the substrate plane.
Claims7
A method of manufacturing an ink jet printhead which includes:
- providing a substrate including a doped layer;
- etching said substrate to form a nozzle chamber;
- depositing a plurality of permanent and sacrificial layers on the substrate including a first permanent layer and a second permanent layer, the first permanent layer having a higher coefficient of thermal expansion and a higher Young's modulus than the second permanent layer;
- etching said permanent layers to form a resiliently flexible, planar bend actuator, cantilevered over said nozzle chamber, the actuator including at least one heating layer with the first and second permanent layers being arranged in spaced, parallel relationship with a rigidity imparting element being applied to one of the permanent layers to accentuate bending of the actuator upon application of resistive heating;
- etching said substrate to said doped layer and etching said doped layer to form a nozzle opening in communication with the nozzle chamber so that, in use, resistive heating of said at least one layer of the actuator causes bending of the actuator towards the nozzle for effecting ink ejection from the nozzle;
- and
- etching said sacrificial layer to release said actuator.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.