• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.27 no.6
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• pp.421-426
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• 2018

To develop a piezoelectric inkjet printhead for high-resolution and high-speed printing, we studied the characteristics of an inkjet printhead by analyzing the major design parameters. An analytical model for the inkjet printhead was established, and numerical analysis of the coupled first-order differential equation for the defined state variables was performed using state equations. To design the dimension of the inkjet printhead with a driving frequency of 100 kHz, the characteristics of the flow rate and discharge pressure of the nozzle were analyzed with respect to design variables of the flow chamber, effective sound wave velocity, driving voltage, and voltage waveform. It was predicted that the change in the height of the flow chamber does not significantly affect the Helmholtz resonance frequency and discharge speed of the nozzle. From the analysis of change in flow chamber width, it is observed that as the width of the flow chamber increases, the ejection speed greatly increases and the Helmholtz resonance frequency decreases considerably, thereby substantially affecting the performance of the inkjet printhead.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.124-129
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• 2010

For the industrial printing applications, the stability of the piezo-driven inkjet printhead is a major requirement. In this paper, we focused on the failure modes of the inkjet printhead and realized a method to detect and repair them at high speed. The printhead monitoring is performed by detecting the residual vibration of the actuating plate using the self- sensing capability of the piezoelectric material. To measure the channel acoustics and to identify the malfunctioning nozzle, we devised the bridge sensing circuitry and failure detection algorithm. The residual vibration signals can be affected by the boundary conditions of the channel acoustics, so it is possible to identify the failure causes by analyzing the monitoring signals. Therefore it is also possible to apply a proper restoring process to the defective printhead. The experimental results show that this method is effective in improving the reliability of the industrial printing.

• Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology
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• v.18 no.5
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• pp.798-807
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• 2004

A testing system was developed to improve the reliability of printhead and several printheads were tested. We developed a thermally driven monolithic inkjet printhead comprising dome-shaped ink chambers, thin film nozzle guides, and omega-shaped heaters integrated on the top surface of each chamber. To perform a fatigue test of an inkjet printhead, the testing system automatically detects a heating failure using a Wheatstone bridge circuit. Various models were designed and tested to develop a more reliable printhead. Two design parameters of the width of reinforcing layer and heater were investigated in the test. Specially., the reinforcing layer was introduced to improve the fatigue life of printhead. The life-span of heater with a reinforcing layer was longer than that without a reinforcing layer. The wider the heater was, the longer the life of printhead was.

• Journal of ILASS-Korea
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.163-169
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• 2010

Jetting stability is the most important factors in inkjet printing because printing quality is totally determined by shape of the droplets on the substrate. In order to acquire stable jet, viscosity and dynamic behavior of the ink must be considered. In addition, waveform to drive the inkjet printhead is also to be controlled. In this study, the driving waveform composed of rising time, dwell time and falling time is optimized to obtain a stable jetting using drop watcher system. Also, effect of ink viscosity on jetting is experimentally investigated by changing the temperature of ink cartridge. As a result, jetted drop having uniform velocity is acquired.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2012.08a
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• pp.126-126
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• 2012

In past decades, the themal inkjet (TIJ) printer has been widely used as one of the most well-known digital printing technology due to its low cost, and high printing quality. Since the printing speed of TIJ printers are much slower than that of laser printers, however, there has been intensive efforts to raise the printing speed of TIJ printers. One of the most plausible methods to raise the printing speed of TIJ printers is to adopt a page-wide array TIJ printhead. To accomplish this goal, the high efficiency inkjet heating resistor films should be developed to settle the high power consumption problem of a page-wide array TIJ printhead. In this study, we investigated noble metal based multicomponent thin film resistor films prepared by atomic layer deposition (ALD) for a high efficiency inkjet printhead. Design concept, preparation, material properties of noble metal based multicomponent thin films will be discussed in terms of mutlfunctionality.

• 한국정보디스플레이학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2009.10a
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• pp.135-137
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• 2009

After setting the gold standard for both industrial dropon-demand inkjet printheads and R&D printers for functional materials printing, FUJIFILM Dimatix has developed a printhead with the highest jetting frequency ever obtained. Operating at 100 kHz, the MEMS fabricated SAMBA printhead expands the capabilities of fabrication methods for display applications.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2011.02a
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• pp.50-50
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• 2011

The aluminum nitride films were prepared by RF magnetron sputtering using an AlN ceramic target. The crystallinity, grain size, Al-N bonding and thermal conductivity were investigated in dependence on the plasma power densities (4.93, 7.40, 9.87 W/$cm^2$) during sputtering. High thermal conductivity is important properties of A1N passivation layer for functioning properly in thermal inkjet printhead. The crytallinity, grain size, Al-N bonding formation and chemical composition were observed using X-ray diffraction (XRD), field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), fourier transform infrared (FTIR) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), respectively. The AlN thin film was changed from amorphous to crystalline as the power density was increased, and the largest grain size appeared at medium power density. The near stoichiometry Al-N bonding ratio was acquired at medium power density. So, we know that the AlN thin film had better thermal conductivity with crystalline phase and near stoichometry Al-N bonding ratio at 7.40 W/$cm^2$ power density.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.24 no.5
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• pp.89-96
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• 2007

Inkjet printing has become one of the most attractive manufacturing techniques in industry. Especially inkjet printing technology will soon be part of the PCB (Printed Circuit Board) fabrication processes. Traditional printing on PCB includes screen printing and photolithography. These technologies involve high costs, time-consuming procedures and several process steps. However, by inkjet technology manufacturing time and production costs can be reduced, and procedures can be more efficient. PCB manufacturers therefore willingly accept this inkjet technology to the PCB industry, and are quickly shifting from conventional to inkjet printing. To produce the printed circuit board by the inkjet technology, it must be harmonized with conductive nano ink, printing process, system, and inkjet printhead. In this study, micro patterning of conductive line has been investigated using the piezoelectric printhead driven by a bipolar voltage signal is used to dispense 20-40 ${\mu}m$ diameter droplets and silver nano ink which consists of 1 to 50 nm silver particles that are homogeneously suspended in an organic carrier. To fabricate a conductive line used in PCB with high precision, a printed line width was calculated and compared with printing results.

• Proceedings of the Materials Research Society of Korea Conference
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• 2010.05a
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• pp.20.2-20.2
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• 2010

Recently inkjet printing technology has been developed in the areas of low cost fabrication in environmentally friendly manufacturing processes. Although inkjet printing requires the interdisciplinary researches including development of materials, manufacturing processes and printing equipment and peripherals, manufacturing a printhead is still core of inkjet technology. In this study, a piezoelectric driven DOD (drop on demand) inkjet printhead has been fabricated on three layers of the silicon wafer in MEMS Technology because of its chemical resistance to industrial inks, strong mechanical properties and dimensional accuracy to meet the drop volume uniformity in printed electronics and display industries. The flow passage, filter and nozzles are precisely etched on the layers of the silicon wafers and assembled through silicon fusion bonding without additional adhesives. The piezoelectric is screen-printed on the top the pressure chamber and the nozzle plate surface is treated with non-wetting coating for jetting fluids. Printheads with nozzle number of 16 to 256 have been developed to get the drop volume range from 5 pL to 80 pL in various industrial applications. Currently our printheads are successfully utilized to fabricating color-filters and PI alignment layers in LCD Flat Panel Display and legend marking for PCB in Samsung Electronics.

• 한국정보디스플레이학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2007.08a
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• pp.373-375
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• 2007

Through Flow Technology offers unparalleled advantages for the manufacturing of flat panel displays using inkjet technology, including: outstanding reliability, self-maintenance, selfpriming and simple set up. The Xaar 1001 GS6 is the first product incorporating this technology. The concept and test results will be presented.