JPH06286141A - Manufacture of nozzle board for ink jet head - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To obtain an ink jet head which is excellent in a discharging characteristic by a method wherein an insulating thin layer pattern is formed at a position corresponding to a nozzle hole on a conductive substrate, which is effectively used to form a region of a different surface characteristic. CONSTITUTION:An insulating thin layer pattern 2 is formed at a position corresponding to a nozzle hole 8 on a conductive substrate 1, and a resist agent layer 5 is formed on an upper face of the metal layer 3. The metal layer 3 is peeled off from the conductive substrate 1, and besides the insulating thin layer pattern 2 is removed. An ink-nonphilic layer 6 is formed on a face of the metal layer 3 which is exposed by the peeling and removing processes. The resist layer 5 is removed, and a nozzle board for ink jet head 7 is manufactured. A surface characteristic near the nozzle hole can be easily precisely controlled by this method. Consequently, an ink jet head which can carry out uniform stable printing can be obtained.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an ink jet printer head, and more particularly to a method of manufacturing a nozzle plate for the ink jet head.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Of the non-impact printers that are expanding their market today, the principle is the simplest,
An inkjet printer is suitable for color printing. 50 for inkjet printers
From a very small nozzle hole of about μmφ, a minute ink droplet having a diameter slightly larger than this is ejected, and the ink droplet is attached to the paper for printing. Therefore, in order to stably drive such a printer, accurate control of ink near the nozzle holes must be performed. In order to achieve such accurate control, it is important to make the size and shape of the nozzle hole uniform and to precisely control the ink affinity on the surface near the nozzle hole. . Among these, as a method for accurately forming the shape and size of the hole, there is a method described in Tokushusho 63-50201.
It is preferable to use an electroforming method such as that disclosed in No. 5. Further, the characteristics of the surface near the nozzle hole are described in JP-A-57-128.
As disclosed in principle in 562, the surface on the ink channel side inside the nozzle hole is ink-friendly,
The outer surface of the nozzle hole needs to be incompatible with ink.

[0003]

However, accurately forming the nozzle holes that satisfy the above requirements involves various manufacturing difficulties. In particular, in order to precisely control the surface in the vicinity of the nozzle hole into minute parts and precisely control the characteristics that are contradictory to the ink, usually, for example, a masking step using a photosensitive resin and a photomask and a surface treatment step are performed. Not only was it necessary to combine them, the process was very difficult, but it also caused a significant increase in manufacturing costs. Further, in a drop-on-demand type inkjet printer that discharges ink only when a print signal is received, which is currently mainstream, an inkjet head has an ink jet head of 50 to 100.
This difficulty is compounded by the need to have as many nozzle holes as there are. The present invention provides a means for efficiently and stably forming an inkjet nozzle plate that requires such extremely difficult characteristics.

[0004]

In order to solve the above problems, according to the present invention, an insulating thin layer pattern is formed on a conductive substrate at a position corresponding to at least a nozzle hole, and a metal layer is formed on the substrate. In a step of an electroforming method for manufacturing a nozzle plate by plating with a step of forming a resist layer on the upper surface of the metal layer after the plating, and peeling the metal layer from the conductive substrate and insulating the insulating layer. Removing the thin layer pattern of
A nozzle plate for an inkjet head is manufactured by a step of forming an ink non-affinity layer on the surface of the metal layer exposed by the peeling and removing steps and a step of removing the resist layer.

[0005]

As described above, it has hitherto been very difficult to precisely control the surface in the vicinity of the nozzle hole, which has a diameter of only about 50 μm, into minute parts and precisely control the contradictory characteristics. On the other hand, according to the process of the present invention, it is possible to overcome this difficulty by forming regions having different surface characteristics by utilizing the insulating thin layer pattern in the electroforming process very effectively. Is. As a result, it has become possible to manufacture an inkjet head with good ejection characteristics.

[0006]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. 1A to 1G are schematic sectional views showing a method for manufacturing a nozzle plate according to the present invention. The steps are as follows. First, in FIG. 1A, an insulating thin layer pattern 2 is formed on a conductive substrate 1. Usually, the substrate 1 is made of stainless steel or the like, and the surface thereof is polished to form a smooth surface. Further, a photosensitive resist having a thickness of several μm is used as the thin layer pattern, and the pattern has a circular shape having a diameter several times as large as the nozzle hole. Next, in FIG. 1B, the metal layer 3 is formed on the substrate 1 by electroplating, which is a so-called electroforming method. Nickel is most commonly used as the metal layer, but copper or iron may be used. Although the thickness of the metal layer can be selected relatively arbitrarily, it is typically about 50 μm.

1 (c) and the subsequent steps are the steps of the essence of the present invention. In FIG. 1 (c), a layer 4 exhibiting ink affinity is formed on a metal layer 3 formed by electroforming. When the ink is aqueous, the ink affinity layer 4 is preferably a hydrophilic inorganic oxide film or the like. For example, if a thin film of silicon oxide is grown to a thickness of about 0.1 μm by a sputtering method, sufficient ink affinity is exhibited. In addition, in the case of non-aqueous or oil-based ink, the metal itself such as nickel has a large ink affinity,
Furthermore, even in water-based ink, if these metal surfaces are in an oxidized state, there is still ink affinity. Therefore, even if the special ink affinity layer 4 is not provided, it can be used as it is or after being oxidized by a simple heat treatment in some cases. In FIG. 1D, a resist agent is further applied thereon to form a resist agent layer 5. As the resist agent, a polymeric one is easy to handle, but it is not particularly required to have photosensitivity. The coating method may be spinner, dip or brush coating. After the resist agent is left at room temperature or stabilized by heat curing or the like, the metal layer 3 is peeled from the substrate 1 and the insulating thin layer pattern 2 is removed as shown in FIG. 1 (e). As a modification of the process from the state of FIG. 1C to the structure of FIG. 1E, first, the metal layer 3 is peeled from the substrate 1, and then the resist agent layer 5 is formed.
May be formed, and thereafter the insulating thin layer pattern 2 may be removed. Furthermore, as a modification of the process from the state of FIG. 1B to the structure of FIG.
May be peeled off, and then the layer 4 exhibiting ink affinity and the resist agent layer 5 may be sequentially formed, and thereafter the insulating thin layer pattern 2 may be removed.

Subsequently, as shown in FIG. 1 (f), the layer 6 exhibiting the ink incompatibility on the surface exposed by peeling from the substrate 1 in this manner.
To form. For the ink non-affinity layer 6, it is generally most effective to use a fluorine-based compound, and a fluorine-based polymer film is formed by a plasma polymerization method or a spray coating method. It is also possible to express the incompatibility of ink by performing eutectoid plating of fine particles of a fluororesin such as Teflon and a metal by no electric field or electrolysis. In FIG. 1 (f), an example of the electroless type eutectoid plating is shown. In this case,
The ink incompatible layer 6 grows only on the metal surface. Finally, in FIG. 1 (g), the resist agent layer 5 is removed by a solvent to obtain a nozzle plate 7 having nozzle holes 8.

FIG. 2 is a schematic cross-sectional view of an ink jet head equipped with the nozzle plate manufactured as described above. This drawing shows the case of the ink jet head disclosed in Japanese Patent Application No. 04-314257, which is based on the driving principle of applying a voltage between electrodes 21a and 21b formed on the side surface of the partition wall to deform the partition wall 20 of the piezoelectric material. The ink is filled in the ink channel 22 sandwiched between the partition walls, and the nozzle plate 7 having the nozzle hole 8 is provided at the tip. Then, when the head is not driven, a meniscus 23 is formed in the nozzle hole due to the surface tension of the ink, and when the head is driven, an ink droplet is ejected from the nozzle hole due to the volume reduction of the ink channel due to the deformation. Now, according to the process of the present invention, it is possible to accurately set the inner side to the ink affinity and the outer side to the non-affinity with the outer edge portion of the nozzle hole as a boundary.
In this way, if the characteristics of the surface near the nozzle hole can be precisely controlled, it is clear that the meniscus formation during non-drive is stable, and the ink drop formation process is stable even during drive. In addition, the ink ejection characteristics at high frequencies are also greatly improved.

[0010]

As described above, according to the method of manufacturing a nozzle plate of the present invention, it is easy to control the surface property in the vicinity of the nozzle hole in a minute region, which was important in obtaining high performance ink jet head characteristics. And can be achieved with high accuracy. A feature of the process of the present invention is that the insulating thin layer pattern for forming the nozzle hole in the electroforming process is effectively used, and a great effect can be obtained by a simple process. As a result,
It is possible to obtain an ink jet head capable of printing with uniform quality and stable quality.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a cross-sectional view illustrating a manufacturing process of an inkjet head nozzle plate according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is an explanatory view and a cross-sectional view for explaining a head using an inkjet head nozzle according to the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 Conductive Substrate 2 Insulating Thin Layer Pattern 3 Metal Layer 4 Ink Affinity Layer 5 Resist Agent Layer 6 Ink Affinity Layer 8 Nozzle Hole 22 Ink Channel

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. A step of forming an insulating thin layer pattern at a position corresponding to at least a nozzle hole on a conductive substrate, a step of plating a metal layer on the substrate to manufacture a nozzle plate, Exposed by the step of forming a resist agent layer on the upper surface side of the metal layer, the step of peeling the metal layer from the conductive substrate and the step of removing the insulating thin layer pattern, and the step of peeling and removing A method of manufacturing a nozzle plate for an inkjet head, comprising: a step of forming an ink non-affinity layer on the surface of the metal layer; and a step of removing the resist agent layer. 2. A step of forming an insulating thin layer pattern at a position corresponding to at least a nozzle hole on a conductive substrate, a step of plating a metal layer on the substrate to manufacture a nozzle plate, A step of peeling the metal layer from the conductive substrate,
A step of forming a resist agent layer on the upper surface side of the metal layer after the plating, a step of removing the insulative thin layer pattern, and a step of removing the insulating layer pattern on the surface of the metal layer exposed by the removing and removing steps. A method of manufacturing a nozzle plate for an inkjet head, comprising a step of forming an ink incompatible layer and a step of removing the resist agent layer. 3. The nozzle for an inkjet head according to claim 1, further comprising a step of forming an ink affinity layer on the upper surface of the metal layer as a step immediately before the step of forming the resist agent layer. Method of manufacturing a plate.