Integrated piezo printhead

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9738070-B1
Application number	US-201615141229-A
Country	US
Kind code	B1
Filing date	Apr 28, 2016
Priority date	Sep 11, 2015
Publication date	Aug 22, 2017
Grant date	Aug 22, 2017

Abstract

An apparatus for a piezoelectric ink-jet printhead is disclosed. Piezoelectric printheads, while more expensive are favored because they use a wider variety of inks. The piezoelectric printhead includes a plurality of ink ejectors with a nozzle, an ink chamber, at least one body chamber, at least one diaphragm material, and a top electrode. The diaphragm material consists of a foil with built up piezoelectric material. The deflection of the diaphragm on the body chamber contributes to a pressure pulse that is used to eject a drop of liquid from the nozzle. According to an exemplary embodiment disclosed, a thin-film piezoelectric printhead uses existing low-cost adhesive based jet stack fabrication processed with polymers and metal foil layers and avoids the cost and complexity of a Micro-electrical-mechanical (MEMS) based fabrication system. According to another exemplary embodiment of this disclosure, provided is a thick hybrid film piezoelectric printhead.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A piezoelectric ink-jet printhead comprising:
a plurality of ink ejectors including,
a nozzle;
an ink chamber;
at least one body chamber;
at least one diaphragm material, wherein the diaphragm material consists of a foil with built up piezoelectric material, configured such that the deflection of the diaphragm on the at least one body chamber contributes to a pressure pulse that is used to eject a drop of liquid from the nozzle; and
a top electrode, the top electrode being individually addressable through drive electronics in electrical communication with the top electrode;

wherein the piezoelectric material is built up in multiple layers.

2. The piezoelectric ink-jet printhead of claim 1 , wherein the piezoelectric material on the at least one diaphragm is formed prior to lamination.

3. The piezoelectric ink-jet printhead of claim 1 , wherein the piezoelectric material is oriented.

4. The piezoelectric ink-jet printhead of claim 1 , wherein the piezoelectric material is patterned.

5. The piezoelectric ink-jet printhead of claim 1 , wherein the piezoelectric material is between 0.5 μm and 25 μm in thickness.

6. The piezoelectric ink-jet printhead of claim 1 , wherein the at least one diaphragm material is between 0.5 μm and 30 μm in thickness.

7. The piezoelectric ink-jet printhead of claim 1 , wherein the at least one diaphragm material is a metal foil.

8. The piezoelectric ink-jet printhead of claim 1 , wherein the at least one diaphragm material is a stainless steel foil.

9. The piezoelectric ink-jet printhead of claim 1 , wherein conductive regions are positioned opposite to each at least one diaphragm material and a voltage is applied to said conductive regions to induce an piezoelectric force that causes deflections in said at least one diaphragm.

10. The piezoelectric ink-jet printhead of claim 1 , wherein the built up piezoelectric material is a piezoelectric composite consisting of from about 5 to about 500 layers of piezoelectric material.

11. A piezoelectric ink-jet printhead comprising:
a plurality of ink ejectors including,
a nozzle;
an ink chamber;
at least one body chamber;
at least one diaphragm material, wherein the diaphragm consists of a foil with built up piezoelectric material, configured such that the deflection of the diaphragm on the at least one body chamber contributes to a pressure pulse that is used to eject a drop of liquid from the nozzle; and
a top electrode, the top electrode individually addressable through drive electronics in electrical communication with the top electrode;

wherein the built up piezoelectric material is built up in multiple layers; and
wherein the piezoelectric printhead is formed by depositing a liquid sol-gel solution comprising a piezoelectric material over a substrate;
curing the liquid sol-gel solution on the substrate to form a cured piezoelectric composite; and
forming an actuator array for the ink jet printhead from the piezoelectric composite, wherein the actuator array comprises a plurality of individually addressable actuators.

12. The piezoelectric ink-jet printhead of claim 11 , wherein the substrate is a printhead diaphragm and the piezoelectric ink-jet printhead is further formed by attaching the printhead diaphragm to a printhead jet stack.

13. The piezoelectric ink-jet printhead of claim 12 , further comprising:
an electrically conductive top electrode layer over the substrate, wherein the liquid sol-gel solution is first deposited over the substrate and onto the top electrode layer, the cured piezoelectric composite is attached to the top electrode layer to a printhead diaphragm and the cured piezoelectric composite and the top electrode layer is removed from the substrate.

14. The piezoelectric ink-jet printhead of claim 12 , wherein the piezoelectric material on the at least one diaphragm is formed prior to lamination.

15. The piezoelectric ink-jet printhead of claim 12 , wherein the piezoelectric material is patterned.

16. The piezoelectric ink-jet printhead of claim 12 , wherein the piezoelectric material is between 0.5 μm and 25 μm in thickness and the at least one diaphragm material is between 0.5 urn and 30 μm in thickness.

17. The piezoelectric ink-jet printhead of claim 12 , wherein the at least one diaphragm material is a metal foil.

18. The piezoelectric ink-jet printhead of claim 11 , wherein the deposition and curing of the liquid sol-gel solution steps are repeated to form a piezoelectric composite consisting of from about 5 to about 500 layers of the piezoelectric material.

19. A method for fabricating BNKT-BMT thick hybrid films, the method comprising:
deposition of a BNKT-BMT paste on a stainless steel membrane substrate, wherein the deposited BNKT-BMT paste is then cured; and
infiltration of the BNKT-BMT paste using the same composition as the BNKT-BMT paste, wherein the infiltrated BNKT-BMT paste is cured, wherein after a plurality of infiltrations and curing cycles, a thick hybrid film is annealed at 650° C.−800° C. for 30 minutes to 2 hours with a final thickness in the range of 5 μm-50 μm.

20. The method of claim 19 , wherein the cured deposited BNKT-BMT paste is cured at 250° C.-600° C. for 15 minutes to 1 hour and the cured infiltration of the BNKT-BMT paste is cured at 250° C.-600° C. for 5-20 minutes.

Assignees

• Xerox Corp
• Brown Universersity

Inventors

• Nystrom Peter J
• Kingon Angus Ian
• Hays Andrew W
• Kim Seunghyun

Classifications

• B41J2/1645

  thin film formation by spincoating · CPC title

• B41J2/1632

  machining · CPC title

• B41J2/1629

  wet etching · CPC title

• B41J2/14233 Primary

  of film type, deformed by bending and disposed on a diaphragm · CPC title

• B41J2/1628

  dry etching · CPC title