JPS60204367A - Preparation of ink jet recording head - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To density ink emitting orifices, by forming heat generating elements and ink passage walls by same screen printing and enhancing the positional determination accuracy thereof. CONSTITUTION:An insulating heat blocking layer 2 is applied to the surface of a substrate 1 while the position of a screen 3 is preliminarily determined and a heat generating elements 4 are applied onto the substrate 1 by screen printing. An insulating layer 5 is applied while the position of a screen 6 is preliminarily determined and ink passage walls 7 are applied by screen printing. A lid plate 8 is connected to the passage walls 7 to form ink passages 9. By this method, the number of processes and that of man-hours can be reduced and the cost of an ink jet recording head can be reduced.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Technical Field] The present invention relates to an inkjet recording head, ie, a method of manufacturing a recording head for generating droplets of recording ink used in an inkjet recording system.

(1) [Prior Art] An ink jet recording head generally includes a fine ink ejection opening (orifice), an ink passage leading to the ejection opening, and an ink ejection energy generator provided in a part of the ink passage.

Conventionally, the method for manufacturing such an inkjet recording head is to form fine grooves on a glass or metal plate by cutting or etching, and then bond another suitable plate to the groove-formed surface of this plate. Methods are known in which ink channels are formed by

However, in the head manufactured by this conventional method, the roughness of the inner wall surface of the ink passage to be cut was too large.
Distortion occurred in the ink passage due to the difference in etching rate.
It is difficult to obtain a highly accurate ink passage, and variations in ink ejection characteristics tend to occur. Further, in the case of cutting, the plate is likely to chip or crack, resulting in a poor manufacturing yield. On the other hand, etching requires many manufacturing steps, which has the disadvantage of increasing costs. Furthermore, in the above conventional method, the grooved plate in which the ink passage is formed and the cover plate in which the drive element such as a 9A energy generator such as a piezoelectric element or a heating element is connected are aligned. The disadvantage is that it is difficult to perform with high precision and lacks mass productivity.

In order to eliminate such drawbacks, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 57-43876 discloses that an ink passage wall made of a cured film of a photosensitive resin is formed on a substrate on which an ink ejection energy generator is provided, and then the ink passage wall is A method of making an inkjet recording head has been proposed that consists of adding a wall covering. However, in this method, the bonding force between the substrate on which the ink ejection energy generator is provided and the ink passage wall made of a cured film of photosensitive resin is not very strong, so a photosensitive resin film is used as the &G of the ink passage wall. In this case, the ink passage wall may be pulled in the direction of shrinkage of the cover due to curing shrinkage of the photosensitive resin cover, and the ink passage wall may peel off from the substrate. Further, even when the bonding force between the ink passage wall and the substrate is sufficient, the ink passage wall may be pulled in the direction of contraction of the cover, and the ink passage wall may not have a desired shape. Furthermore, when a cold-curing adhesive, a thermosetting adhesive, or a light-curing adhesive is used to cover the ink passage wall, the adhesive flows into the ink passage and closes the ink passage. This has the disadvantage of lowering the manufacturing yield.

In addition, this method requires advanced thin film techniques such as splattering and vapor deposition and large-scale film forming equipment to form the ink ejection energy generators, such as heating elements.
The process is also complicated. Therefore, when the formation of the ink ejection energy generating body and the formation of the ink passage are combined, this conventional method has problems in that the number of steps is enormous, large-scale equipment is required, and the yield is poor.

[Purpose of the invention]

The present invention is based on the above-mentioned conventional techniques and aims to manufacture an inkjet recording head having high precision and high reliability through a simple process.

[Summary of the invention]

According to the present invention, the above object is to provide a heating element and an ink passage wall forming an ink passage on a substrate by screen printing, and then apply a cover plate to the ink passage wall material to form an ink passage. This is achieved by forming an ink discharge port.

[Embodiments of the invention]

Examples of the manufacturing method of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

FIGS. 1(a) to 1(f) are cross-sectional views showing the steps of the method of the present invention.

In FIG. 1 (&), 1 is a substrate), and the substrate 1 may be made of silicon, alumina, ceramic, glass, or the like. An insulating and heat-insulating layer 2 is previously applied to the surface of the substrate 1 (thickness, for example, 2 μm).

An example of the insulating and heat-insulating layer 2 is an sto2 film. On the surface of the substrate 1 is a screen 3 for screen printing.
is positioned and placed. The screen 3 has openings for the mother turns of the heating elements to be formed.

Next, as shown in FIG. 1(b), screen printing is performed on the screen 3, and heating elements 4 (5) are provided on the substrate 1 (thickness, for example, 0.2 μm). Heat generating element 4
For example, HfB2 is used, and this is mixed with, for example, an epoxy-based high-temperature adhesive and applied onto the screen 3.

Next, as shown in FIG. 1(C), an insulating layer 5 is applied to cover the heating element 4. As the insulating layer 5, 5102. An ink-resistant material such as Ta is used.

Next, as shown in FIG. 1(d), a screen 6 for screen printing is positioned and placed on the insulating layer 5. The screen 5 has an opening in the mother turn of the ink passage wall to be formed.

Next, as shown in FIG. 1(,), screen printing is performed from above the screen 5, and an ink passage wall 7 is provided at a predetermined position on the insulating layer 5 (thickness, for example, 40 to 60 μm).
. For the ink passage wall 7, a material having excellent ink resistance and barrier properties between heating elements, such as polyimide resin, is used.

Next, as shown in FIG. 1(f), a cover plate 8 is joined onto the passage wall 7. For the cover plate 8, a material having good ink resistance (6), such as glass, alumina, ceramic, or silicon, is used. Further, for bonding, for example, an epoxy Φ adhesive or a UV curing adhesive is used.

An ink passage 9 is formed by joining the lid plate 8.

FIG. 2 is an exploded perspective view of the inkjet recording head thus manufactured. In the figure, 10 is an ink chamber, and 11 is a connection hole for an ink supply pipe for introducing ink into the ink chamber 10 from an ink tank. Also,
12 is an ink discharge port. However, in this figure, the insulating heat-insulating layer 2 and the insulating layer 5 are not shown.

In the above manufacturing process, since screen printing has high precision, it is possible to increase the arrangement density of ink ejection ports (for example, 8 pet/m), and furthermore, it is possible to form a large number of ink ejection systems on a relatively large substrate. By cutting and dividing using a DISCO cutting tool or the like, it is also possible to produce a large number of heads in one process.

Similarly, in the present invention, the term "ink passage" is used to include the above-mentioned ink chamber formed on the substrate (7) 12: Ink discharge port.

ing.

〔Effect of the invention〕

According to the head manufacturing method of the present invention as described above, the heating element and the ink passage wall can be successively formed by the same screen printing, so the positioning accuracy of these elements is improved and ink ejection can be performed with good reliability. It is possible to increase the density of the outlet. In addition, since the heating element and the ink passage wall are manufactured on the same line, the number of processes and man-hours can be significantly reduced, and less equipment is required for manufacturing, thus reducing the cost of the inkjet recording head. can be achieved.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

1(a) to 1(f) are cross-sectional views showing the steps of the method of the present invention, and FIG. 2 is an exploded perspective view of a recording head manufactured by the method of the present invention. Reference Signs List 1-substrate, 2-insulating heat-insulating layer, 3-screen, 4: heating element, 5: insulating layer, 6: screen, 7: ink passage wall, 8-two cover plates, 9: ink passage, 10: ink chamber, 11 :
Ink supply pipe connection hole, (8) (9)

Claims (1)

[Claims] (1) An ink ejection port, an ink passage leading to the ejection port,
and a method for manufacturing an inkjet recording head comprising a heating element for generating ink ejection energy provided in a part of the ink passage, the heating element and the ink passage wall forming the ink passage being provided on the substrate by screen printing. , after that, a cover plate is applied to the wall soil of the ink passage to form an ink passage and an ink discharge port,
A method for manufacturing an inkjet recording head.