JPS6339347A - Recorder and recording method - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To enable high-speed recording and super-high precision recording by employing a multinozzle ink discharge device to electrically charge ink droplets through electron beam projection and especially employing a solid electron beam generator with a plurality of arranged electron beam sources to atomize or transform to mists liquid droplets ejected from a nozzle. CONSTITUTION:An electron beam generator 2 is provided with the same number of electron beam surfaces as that of nozzles provided on a liquid droplet discharge device 1, and selectively charges a plurality of liquid droplets 3 ejected from the liquid droplet discharge device 1. If the acceleration rate of the electron beam generated by the electron generator 2 is set at more than a threshold value, the liquid droplets are charged to a near oversaturated level and are separated in the form of charged fine liquid droplets or mists. These fine liquid droplets or mist-like liquid droplets 3A are deflected by the force of a magnetic field when they pass through a uniform electric field by a deflecting electrode 4. The transport speed of a recording paper 6 by a roller 7 and the oscillation frequency of a piezoelectric element 11 are adjusted. A desired colored pattern can be recorded in ink on the recording paper 6 by timing of the discharge of liquid droplets from the liquid droplet discharge device 1 and the synchronization of an image signal which is input to a signal terminal 12.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Industrial Field of Application 1] The present invention relates to a recording apparatus and a recording method, particularly to inkjet recording using an electron beam.

[Prior Art] Conventional inkjet recording has attracted attention as non-impact plain paper recording, and various methods have been proposed.

For example, in the saliva load control type ink shell recording method, pressurized ink is ejected from a nozzle at regular intervals by mechanical excitation, and without generating ink droplets, it is charged according to a signal, and then This method records by deflecting the droplet using a constant electrostatic field, but since the amount of charge is controlled using a charged electrode placed close to the tip of the nozzle, the amount of charge on the droplet fluctuates and the point of impact cannot be determined. There was a drawback that it wasn't.

In addition, the on-demand ink sheet recording method obtains the necessary ink in one-to-one correspondence with electrical signals.
A nozzle that utilizes the piezoelectric effect is used, but multi-nozzle on-demand inkjet recording has not been realized because it is impossible to increase the nozzle density. Therefore, high-speed recording is difficult with the on-demand type, and its use is limited to low-speed printers such as printers attached to desktop electronic calculators.

In addition, for the purpose of increasing the resolution of inksheet recording, example 1
4 As described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 51-33519, pressurized ink is supplied to a nozzle, and this nozzle is excited by an electrostrictive element excited by a high-frequency power source to eject particles from the nozzle hole. At the same time, this ink scoop is charged in accordance with an information signal and passed through a constant electric field. This method generates ink particles of large diameter and small diameter alternately, and applies a charge to only the particles of small diameter, thereby recording. A method using this method has been proposed, but this method has the following drawbacks. In other words, it is necessary to stably and reliably generate small-diameter particles from the nozzle.
/J'1-Difficult, and furthermore, when small-diameter particles and large-diameter particles are generated alternately, it is extremely difficult to match the separation timing of the small-diameter particles with the phase of the information signal. For example, the physical properties of the ink may change due to changes in ambient temperature or humidity.
This is because the above problem becomes more obvious. Furthermore, as described above, charging can only be performed on droplets ejected from one nozzle, making multi-nozzle construction impossible.

[Problems to be solved by the invention] The present invention eliminates the drawbacks of the conventional example described above, and achieves high-speed recording and
An object of the present invention is to provide a non-impact plain paper recording device and a recording method that enable ultra-high-definition recording.

Means for Solving Problem E 1 In order to achieve such an object, the recording apparatus of the present invention includes a droplet ejection means having a plurality of droplet ejection ports, and a droplet ejecting means that has a plurality of droplet ejection ports. an electron beam generating means having a number of electron beam sources not less than a plurality of droplet ejection openings for selectively irradiating electron beams to make the droplets into finely charged droplets; and a pair of electrodes for deflecting droplets charged by electron beam irradiation among the droplets.

Further, the recording method of the present invention includes a droplet ejection means having a plurality of droplet ejection ports, and a droplet ejected from the droplet ejection means that is selectively irradiated with an electron beam to form fine droplets. an electron beam generating means having a number of electron beam sources not less than the plurality of droplet ejection ports, and provided substantially parallel to the trajectory of the droplet;
A pair of electrodes for deflecting the droplets charged by the electron beam irradiation QJ among the droplets, and a TJ installed between the electron beam generating means and the pair of electrodes for neutralizing the finely charged droplets. A second electron beam generating means for selectively irradiating an electron beam to charge the fine liquid droplets from which static electricity has been removed, which is provided between the static eliminating means and the m pair of electrodes, is provided. It is characterized by

Further, in the recording method of the present invention, droplets are ejected from a droplet ejection means having a plurality of droplet ejection ports, and the droplets are generated by an electron beam generating means having a plurality of electron beam sources not less than the number of droplet ejection ports. The ejected droplet was illuminated with an electron beam.
The night droplet is made into a micro-diameter charged cylinder, and a voltage is applied to a pair of electrodes arranged almost parallel to the trajectory of the micro-diameter charged droplet to separate the droplet, and the droplet is discharged into a droplet ejecting means. It is characterized by recording by selectively ejecting droplets onto recording media disposed opposite to each other.

[Operation] According to the present invention, a multi-nozzle ink ejection device is used,
Since the ink droplets are charged by electron beam irradiation, it is easier to control the amount of charge on the ink droplets compared to conventional charging methods, and stable recording can be obtained.

Furthermore, by using a solid-state electron beam generator having a plurality of electron beam sources, high-definition recorded images can be realized.

Furthermore, according to the present invention, since the ink droplets ejected from the nozzle are miniaturized or become mist and reach the paper surface, it is possible to obtain a smooth, high-quality image without scattering due to ink collision. Furthermore, this makes it easier to mix colors during colorization, resulting in a high-quality color image.

Moreover, high-definition recording can be obtained by removing static electricity after forming a uniform mist, and then selectively charging and sorting out misses 1-.

[Example code] Hereinafter, the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a perspective view showing an overview of an embodiment of the recording apparatus of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a sectional view illustrating the recording method of the present invention, and FIG.
The figure is a structural diagram of a solid state electron beam generating device which is a preferred embodiment of the electron beam generating means used in the present invention.

In FIG. 1, reference numeral 1 denotes a droplet discharge device having a large number of nozzles. This droplet discharge device was manufactured by forming a structure by photolithography on a tri-film adhered to a glass substrate, and then gluing a glass plate as a top plate. By using this manufacturing method, it became possible to increase the density of the nozzle.

21'i The electron beam generator has the same number of electron beam sources as the number of nozzles of the droplet discharge device 1, and generates electron beams corresponding to the flying droplets 3 ejected from the droplet discharge device 1. It is arranged so that you can catch one or three times. A deflection electrode 4 applies a predetermined electric field to the droplet 3. 5 is an ink collection plate, and 6 is plain paper for recording, or the liquid 7 and the liquid 3 reach the recording paper 6 or the collection plate 5 depending on whether or not the electron beam generator 2 irradiates the ink with an electron beam. The recording paper 6 is conveyed at a constant speed by a driving roller.

Next, the recording method of the present invention will be explained with reference to FIG.

By applying a pressure of 2 to 3 kg/cm2 to the ink in the droplet ejecting device 1 and applying vibration to the nozzle with a piezoelectric element 11 such as an Eso vibrator, a shet is ejected from the nozzle and the ink is turned into particles. do. Next, the droplet 3 in flight is irradiated with electrons discharged from the electron beam generator 2. At this time, by manually inputting a control signal according to the image information to the signal terminal 12, the plurality of droplets 3 ejected from the droplet ejection device 1 are selectively charged. What is unique about this case is that when the acceleration of the electron beam flowing out from the electron generator 2 is increased above the threshold, the droplet becomes close to supersaturation -111; It is thought that a strong repulsion will occur, and the micro droplets or mist will remain charged for several minutes.The threshold value at this time differs depending on the physical properties of the ink. When passing through a uniform electric field, it is deflected by the force of the electric field.The desired deflection angle can be obtained by appropriately setting the voltage V applied to the terminal 13.On the other hand, when the electron beam is irradiated, The remaining droplets are collected by the ink collection plate 5 and returned to the ink tank 14. The droplets are then supplied to the droplet ejecting device 1 again by the pump 15.

The droplets 3A that are not collected by the ink collection plate reach the recording paper 6 and record information. Recording is performed by adjusting the conveyance speed of the recording paper 6 by the roller rough and the frequency of the piezoelectric element 11, and synchronizing the timing at which droplets are ejected from the droplet ejecting device 1 with the image signal input manually to the signal terminal 12. A desired colored pattern can be recorded on the paper 6 using ink.

Further, when an electrode is provided on the back side of the recording paper 6 and a positive potential is applied, the charged droplets are pulled up onto the recording paper, so that the recording speed is increased.

As the electron beam illumination source used in the present invention, for example, an electron beam recording tube having an electron beam transmission window, which was disclosed in U.S. Pat. For this purpose, it is desirable to use a solid-state electron beam generator.

2. Description of the Related Art As a solid-state electron beam generator, a device is known that applies an electric field to a heterojunction formed in a semiconductor to radiate an electron beam from the surface of the semiconductor to the outside.

For example, Japanese Patent Publication No. 54-30274 discloses a device in which electrons are emitted from the surface of a p-type region by applying a forward voltage to an n-p connection formed in a mixed crystal of AρP and GaP. JP-A-54-111272 (or U.S. Pat. No. 4,259,678) and JP-A-56-15
No. 529 (or U.S. Pat. No. 4,303,930) discloses a solid-state electron beam generator that generates electron beams by applying a reverse voltage to a pn junction in an opening provided in an insulating layer on the surface of a semiconductor. , and these Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 54-11272,
JP-A-56-15529 discloses an electronic beam generator integrated on a semiconductor substrate.

Furthermore, Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 57-38528 discloses a multi-cold electron emitting cathode in which a device for emitting electrons from the semiconductor surface by applying a forward bias voltage to the pn junction is integrated on a semiconductor substrate. There is.

In the present invention, it is possible to use such technology or a similar technology, and preferred examples of solid-state electron beam generators used in the recording apparatus and recording method of the present invention are as follows. In other words, it is a solid-state electron beam generator in which a plurality of electron beam sources are arranged on a substrate, a thin plate is placed facing the substrate at a predetermined interval, and the open surface of the substrate and the thin plate is sealed so that a vacuum is created. A part of the thin plate is made of an electron-transparent member, an electrode is provided on the thin plate, and a predetermined voltage is applied between the electron beam source and the electrode to accelerate the electrons flowing out from the electron beam source. , taken out of the solid-state electron beam generator 3];

Figures 3 (Δ), (B), and (C) are structural diagrams of a solid-state electron generator, which is an example of a preferred embodiment; Figure 3 (A) shows the qt plane of the substrate; (C) is a sectional view taken along the line XX and a sectional view taken along the YY line of FIG. 2A, respectively.

21 is a substrate which is the main body of the electron beam source, and n on the wood layer side.
A shaped silicon substrate was used. EXI, EX2゜EX3.
. . . is an X electrode that selects the X direction, and each X electrode E
XI, EX2. EX3. ... is through the contact area,
Highly doped n-type region MDI, HD2°HD3. ... are connected to each other. Further, EY is a Y electrode, which is also connected to the highly doped n-type path 22 via a contact area j, and an X electrode EXI.

EX2. EX3. ... and Y electrode E Y constitute a matrix. An extraction electrode 24 is provided on the substrate 21 via an insulating layer 23, and an electron beam source EBI
, EB2. EB3. ...is formed. A surface plate 25 is placed facing the substrate 21 with a spacer having a predetermined thickness interposed therebetween.
An accelerating electrode 26 is provided at a position corresponding to 4, and
Electron beam source EB1. For the portions corresponding to EB2, EB3, etc., an electron transparent member (electronic window) such as boron nitride (BN) or silicon carbide (SiC) is used. Furthermore, by using a metal thin film such as /1 for the surface plate 25, it is also possible to serve both as an accelerating electrode and an electron window. Is it necessary to make the space between the substrate 21 and the surface plate 25 a vacuum in order to accelerate the electrons to a desired energy?
A pressure of about -9 Torr is desirable. The substrate 21 and the surface plate 25 are hermetically sealed to withstand such pressure.

Next, in the above configuration, the X electrodes EXT, EX2. ,EX3
．． ...and the Y electrode EY, there is an avalanche amplification effect p
- Apply a voltage such as that occurring at the n junction and simultaneously pull (
By applying a certain voltage to the electrode 24,
Electron beam sources EBB, EB2. Electrons leak from EB3... At this time, electrode EXI.

EX2. EX3. By appropriately selecting ..., electrons can be extracted from any electron beam source. Next, by applying a predetermined voltage to the accelerating electrode 26, the electrons flowing out from the electron beam source are accelerated to a desired energy and transmitted through the electron window of the surface plate 25. For example, if SiC with a thickness of 111 m is used as the electron window, 90% of the electrons can be taken out of the solid-state electron generator by applying a voltage of 25 kV to the accelerating electrode 26.

Next, a more precise recording method using the present invention will be explained with reference to FIG. In this embodiment, as shown, a static eliminator 31 and a second electron beam generator 32 are provided between the electron beam generator 2 and the deflection electrode 4 in FIG. 1 described above. The electron beam generator 2 spreads the liquid 7 quotient 3 over all areas,
This is a means for irradiating electron beams, and the droplets 3 are turned into mist by the electron beam generator 2. Mistake 1- results in mist 33 that is charged or has been neutralized by the static eliminator 31. Immediately, the second electron beam generator 32 independently controls and irradiates an electron beam to a part of the area of Miss 1 that corresponds to the image part to be obtained, selectively charging Miss 1 to create a mist. It shall be 33A. Using the deflection electrode 4 in the same way as in FIG.
The charging error l-33A reaches the recording paper 6.

With normal ink sheet recording, it is impossible to record pitches finer than the nozzle pitch. By further turning H into a mist and selectively charging it with fine bits, ultra-high definition recording became possible.

By selectively charging droplets using this solid-state electron generator, it becomes possible to precisely control the amount of charge on the ink droplets, eliminating the conventional deviation in the impact point and achieving high-quality recording. Obtained.

For example, high-definition images with a pitch of approximately 100 pm can be recorded using a droplet ejecting device with nozzles arranged at a pitch of 100 μm and a solid-state electron generator with an electron beam source arranged one-dimensionally at the same pitch. I got it.

In this embodiment, an electron beam source that utilizes the avalanche amplification effect of a pn junction is used, and the electron outflow mechanism is not a woody one.

Therefore, the present invention has similar effects even when other known electron beam sources using a pn junction with a negative work function or a solid state electron beam source such as a field emission type are used.

Furthermore, in this embodiment, the electron beam sources arranged in a one-dimensional array have been described, but by dividing the electron beam sources arranged in two dimensions into blocks and controlling them in units of blocks,
Similar recorded images can also be obtained.

[Effects of the Invention] As explained above, according to the recording method of the present invention, since multi-nozzle ink sheller 1 to recording can be realized, it is possible to perform recording at a much higher speed than that using a single nozzle.

In addition, since the ink cartridge is charged by electronic thread 9, it is easier to control the amount of charge of the ink droplets compared to conventional charging methods, and stable recording cannot be obtained.

In addition, by using a solid-state electron beam generating device in which a plurality of electron sources (S, ♀) are arranged, high-definition recorded images can be realized.

Furthermore, according to the present invention, since the ink droplets ejected from the nozzle are miniaturized or miss-sized and reach the paper surface, there is no scattering due to ink collisions, and a smooth, high-quality image can be obtained. Furthermore, this makes it easier to mix colors during colorization, resulting in a high-quality color image.

In addition, after uniform mist, static electricity is removed, and then selective mist is applied once.
! : High-definition records can be obtained by electrifying and sorting.

That is, the present invention enables a recording method that simultaneously satisfies high-speed recording, high-definition recording, and non-invacuum plain paper recording.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a perspective view showing an outline of an embodiment of a recording device according to the present invention, FIG. 2 is a sectional view showing an uninvented recording method, and FIG. 3 (8), (B), (C). is one of the electron beam sources used in the present invention 71i! This figure shows the structure of a solid-state electron beam generator as an example.
l), (C) is x −X of (A) in the same figure!
1g and a sectional view taken along the y-y line. FIG. 4 is a sectional view showing the main part of another embodiment of the present invention. DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1... Droplet discharge device 2... Electron beam generator, 3... Ink droplet, 4... Deflection electrode, 5... Ink collection plate, 6... Recording paper, 7...・Roller, 11...Piezoelectric element, 12...Signal terminal, 14...Ink tank, 15...Pump, 2I...Substrate, 22...High 1-pull type passage, 23... ...Insulating layer, 24...Extracting electrode, 25...Surface plate, 2...Accelerating electrode, 31...Static elimination device, 32...'fJ2 electron beam generator, 33...Static elimination mist, 33A...4 (1 - mist 1~, EBI, EB
2. EB3...electron beam source, EXl, EX2. EX3・
X electrode, EY...Y electrode, HDl, HD2. HD3--high tope n-type region.

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] 1) A droplet discharge means having a plurality of droplet discharge ports, and a droplet discharged from the droplet discharge means is selectively irradiated with an electron beam to transform the droplet into a finely charged liquid. an electron beam generating means having a number of electron beam sources not less than the number of the plurality of droplet ejection openings for forming droplets; and an electron beam generating means provided substantially parallel to the trajectory of the droplet, the electron beam generating means being provided substantially parallel to the trajectory of the droplet, and irradiating the electron beam with respect to the droplet. 1. A recording device comprising: a pair of electrodes for deflecting a droplet charged by an electrode. 2) a droplet ejection means having a plurality of droplet ejection ports; and a method for selectively irradiating the droplets ejected from the droplet ejection means with an electron beam to turn the droplets into finely charged droplets. an electron beam generating means having at least as many electron beam sources as the plurality of droplet ejection ports; a pair of electrodes for deflection; a static eliminator for neutralizing the finely charged droplets provided between the electron beam generating means and the pair of electrodes; and between the static eliminator and the pair of electrodes. A recording apparatus comprising a second electron beam generating means for selectively irradiating the discharging fine droplets with an electron beam to charge them. 3) The electron beam generating means includes a plurality of electron beam sources arranged on a substrate, a thin plate facing the substrate and provided at a predetermined interval, and a gap between the substrate and the thin plate forming a substantially vacuum. A part of the thin plate is made of an electron-transparent member, and an electrode is provided on the thin plate, and the electron beam source is activated by a predetermined voltage applied between the electron beam source and the electrode. 3. The recording device according to claim 2, wherein the recording device is a solid-state electron beam generating device in which more outflowing electrons are accelerated and extracted to the outside of the thin plate. 4) Droplets are ejected from a droplet ejection means having a plurality of droplet ejection ports, and electron beams are generated by an electron beam generation means having a plurality of electron beam sources not less than the number of droplet ejection ports. The ejected droplet is irradiated to turn the droplet into a charged droplet with a minute diameter, and a voltage is applied to a pair of electrodes arranged approximately parallel to the trajectory of the charged droplet with a minute diameter to transform the droplet into a charged droplet. A recording method comprising separating droplets and selectively flying the droplets onto a recording medium disposed opposite to the droplet discharge means for recording. 5) The record according to claim 4, characterized in that before the micro-diameter charged droplet is separated by the pair of electrodes, static electricity is removed and then the electron beam is selectively irradiated again to charge the droplet. Method.