Method for ejecting ink droplets in an acoustic ink printer and a piezoelectric transducer for an ink printer

Abstract: An acoustic ink printer transducer comprises a piezoelectric layer (13) positioned between two suitable electrode materials (12,14). To enable ejection of a number of different ink droplet sizes from the acoustic ink printer, thereby facilitating grey scale printing, the piezoelectric layer (13) and one (14) of the electrode layers have an acoustic thickness of λ/4, where λ is the wavelength at the fundamental resonant frequency ω o of the transducer.

Description: The present invention relates to a method of ejecting ink droplets in an acoustic ink printer transducer comprising a piezoelectric layer positioned between two suitable electrode materials, and such transducer. U.S. Patent 4,482,833 to Weinert et al. discloses a method of depositing thin films of gold having a high degree of orientation on surfaces previously yielding only unoriented gold by sputtering a layer of glass over the surface of the material followed by depositing a layer of oriented gold over the layer of glass. The additional step of depositing a layer of piezoelectric material over the layer of oriented gold is included to provide piezoelectric material having good orientation due to the oriented gold. The transducer described possesses a layer of glass deposited over a material which previously provided unoriented gold followed by a layer of gold, a layer of piezoelectric material and a top conductive electrode to form a transducer wherein the piezoelectric material has a high degree of orientation. U.S. Patent 4,749,900 to Hadimioglu et al. discloses a multi layer acoustic transducer wherein the thickness of the piezoelectric layer is approximately one half the wave length of the acoustic operating frequency. The use of gold as the top and lower electrodes is also disclosed. U.S. Patents 4,006,444, 4,430,897, and 4,267,732 all to Quate and U.S. Patent 3,774,717 to Chodorow disclose imaging apparatuses that include a transducer coated with a thin layer of gold. The standard acoustic ink print head embodies a substrate having an acoustic wave generating means which is generally a planar transducer used for generating acoustic waves of one or more predetermined wave lengths. The wave generating means is positioned on the lower surface of the substrate. The transducer is typically composed of a piezoelectric film such as zinc oxide positioned between a pair of metal electrodes, such as gold electrodes. Other suitable transducer compositions can be used provided that the unit is capable of generating plane waves in response to a modulated RF voltage applied across the electrodes. The transducer will be generally in mechanical communication with the substrate in order to allow efficient transmission of the generated acoustic waves into the substrate. Generally an acoustic lens is formed in the upper surface of the unit for focusing acoustic waves incident on the substrate side of the unit to a point of focus on the opposite side. The acoustic lens (whether a spherical lens or a Fresnel lens)is generally adjacent to a liquid ink pool which is acoustically coupled to the substrate and the acoustic lens. By positioning the focus point of such a lens at or very near a free surface of the liquid ink pool, droplets of ink can be ejected from the pool. In the past, to achieve grey levels in acoustic ink printing, two approaches have been identified: In the first approach, changing the length of the RF (and hence the acoustic) burst increases the droplet size by up to two times from its diffraction-limited minimum diameter of approximately one wave length; the second approach is to vary the number of droplets that are deposited per pixel. It is an object of the present invention to provide a piezoelectric transducer that can enable variable grey levels to be achieved in acoustic ink printing. The present invention provides a method of ejecting ink droplets in an acoustic ink printer having a piezoelectric transducer according to claim 1. It is constructed so that the transducer can generate a sound wave at either its fundamental resonance frequency ω o or at a harmonic resonance frequency offset from the fundamental frequency by ω o , i.e. at 2ω o , thereby enabling the ejection of droplets of substantially different diameters. The present invention further provides a piezoelectric transducer for an acoustic ink printer according to claim 4, said transducer having a fundamental resonance ω o at a wavelength λ. Said transducer comprises a first electrode layer on said substrate, a piezoelectric layer disposed on said first electrode layer, and a second electrode layer disposed on said piezoelectric layer, said second electrode layer having an acoustic thickness of essentially λ/4 and said piezoelectric layer having an acoustic thickness of essentially λ/4. A transducer in accordance with the present invention enables the droplet diameter ejected by an acoustic ink printer to be changed by about a two fold factor. This result can be achieved because a transducer in accordance with the invention can oscillate at half of the even multiples of the fundamental resonant frequency ω o (including 2ω o ) and not only at the odd multiples as is usually the case. In this way it is possible to operate an acoustic ink printer transducer not only at its fundamental frequency ω o but also at the frequency 2ω o . The significance of this to acoustic ink printing is that operation at the frequency 2ω o enables the formulation and ejection of a droplet of half the diameter of that formed with sound at the fundamental frequency. The corresponding areas of the paper marks thus differ by a ratio of up to about 1:8, depending on the interaction between the ink and the recording medium. Such a ratio is useful for achieving grey scale in acoustic ink printing. By contrast if only the fundamental frequency ω o and the harmonic frequency 3ω o were available, as is usually the case, the ratio of the areas of the paper marks would be about 1:27, which is not as useful a ratio for achieving grey scale in acoustic ink printing. IIn accordance with the invention, a transducer for acoustic ink printing applications can be obtained by loading the transducer with a plated metal top electrode that is a quarter wave thick at the transducer's fundamental frequency. With such a structure, one reduces the thickness of the piezoelectric film used in the transducer to one half that conventionally required, that is, from λ/2 to essentially λ/4. In other words, by loading the piezoelectric film of a transducer for an acoustic ink print head with a λ/4 thickness of a suitable electrode material, such as gold, the thickness of the piezoelectric film can be reduced by a factor of two from λ/2 (conventional) toλ/4 where λ is the wavelength at the fundamental frequency ω o of the transducer. The benefits of such construction include a corresponding reduction in electrical resistance of the top electrode which increases the uniformity of sound production when such top electrode is a segment of a transmission line that is used to distribute RF energy to multiple transducers of a multi ejector print head. The thinner piezoelectric films can be deposited in less time, and in many instances, will thus have superior crystalline quality because of reduced internal strain. By way of example only, an embodiment of the invention will be described with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which: Fig. 1 shows a conventional piezoelectric transducer known in the art. Fig. 2 shows a piezoelectric transducer in accordance with the present invention. Fig. 3 is a graph showing a theoretical frequency response curve for a prior art ZnO-Au transducer constructed as shown in Fig. 1. Fig. 4 is a graph showing a theoretical response curve for a piezoelectric transducer constructed as shown in Fig. 2. Fig. 5 is a graph showing theoretical and experimental frequency response curves for resonances of a piezoelectric transducer constructed as shown in Fig. 2. Referring to Fig. 1, there is shown a conventional piezoelectric transducer 1 comprising a substrate 2, a metal electrode 3 positioned on substrate 2, and a piezoelectric metal-oxide layer 4 having a metal electrode 5 on the top thereof. The acoustic impedance at the interface between piezoelectric layer 4 and top electrode 5 is approximately zero. Further, as is generally the case, it is assumed that the impedance of substrate material 2 is lower than that of piezoelectric layer 4 and that the impedance of piezoelectric layer 4 is in turn lower than that of electrodes 3 and 5. This is generally true in the acoustic ink printing art, where substrates such as glass, fused quartz and silicon have normalized impedances of approximately 12, 14, and 20, respectively. These substrate impedances are lower than piezoelectric materials (ZnO, PZT, with normalized impedance of 36,35, respectively) which are in turn lower than the normalized impedance of gold which is equal to about 63. Normally, in a transducer as depicted in Fig. 1, the piezoelectric material 4 has a thickness of λ/2 (whereλ is the wavelength at which the transducer has a fundamental resonance, corresponding to an operating frequency ω o ). The piezoelectric material is generally zinc oxide and the top and bottom electrodes 5 and 3, respectively, are acoustically thin layers of metal such as gold. For example, a halfwave thickness of zinc oxide is about 18 µm for a typical acoustic ink printing operating frequency (ω o ) of 160 MHz. In this case the mass of the top electrode 5 is negligible and does not appreciably affect the acoustic impedance at the top surface of the zinc oxide piezoelectric layer. This top surface, being free, presents an impedance of essentially zero and, consequently, the λ/2 zinc oxide layer is resonant at ω o . The reason for this result is that when the E-field polarity causes the piezoelectric layer to thicken, the top surface moves up a substantial amount (against air) and the bottom surface moves down to lesser extent against the lower impedance substrate. Thus, the sound wave at the piezoelectric top surface is 180° out of phase with the sound wave at the bottom of the piezoelectric surface. However, when the wave due to the top surface oscillation travels the λ/2 distance to the bottom surface, it is again in-phase. However, at the frequency 2ω o , that same top surface wave undergoes a full λ phase shift, rendering it out of phase with the lower surface wave, thereby suppressing resonance at that frequency. Referring to Fig. 2, there is shown a piezoelectric transducer 10 in accordance with the present invention comprising substrate 11 such as glass, a thin metal (Au or Ti-Au) bottom electrode 12, a metallic oxide (ZnO) piezoelectric layer 13 and metal (Au) top electrode 14. The top electrode 14, which has a top surface 15A and a bottom surface 15B, is thickened to an acoustic thickness of λ/4, thus forming a high reflectance layer. The effect of summing, at the piezoelectric top surface, the reflected waves from 15A and 15B is equivalent to cancelling the sound wave and that, in turn, is equivalent to the presence of a very high acoustic impedance. In such an event, the top surface of piezoelectric layer 13 is nearly immobilized; that is, the impedance at the top surface of piezoelectric layer 13 is effectively infinite. The condition for resonance with an infinite impedance at the top surface of the piezoelectric layer is that the piezoelectric layer will have an acoustic thickness of λ/4. It follows that, at the frequency 2ω 0 , the top electrode 14 becomes a half wave thick. Under this circumstance, the impedance at the top electrode 14-piezoelectric layer 13 interface becomes effectively zero, as it was when the top electrode 14 thickness was substantially as depicted in Fig. 1 above. Similarly the piezoelectric layer becomes a halfwave thick as it was in Fig. 1 above. The result is that the structure depicted in Fig. 2, unlike that of the prior art shown in Fig. 1, is resonant at the frequency 2ω o . Experimental work performed at the higher harmonics confirms that the structure of Fig. 2 is resonant at all odd multiples of the fundamental resonant frequency ω o and at half of the even multiples, that is, at the second, sixth, tenth multiples, etc. Although zinc oxide is the preferred material for the piezoelectric layer 13 in Fig. 2, other materials such as lithium niobate or cadmium sulfide may be used. Fig. 3 is a graph showing a computed response curve for a zinc oxide-gold transducer constructed as shown in Fig. 1 having a fundamental resonant frequency, ω o , near 160MHz. The graph depicts conversion loss in dB as a function of frequency in MHz. It can be seen that resonances occur at ω o and 3ω o but not at 2ω o as described above. Fig. 4 is a graph also plotting conversion loss (dB) as a function of frequency (MHz) showing theoretical resonances of a transducer structure constructed as shown in Fig. 2. The graph clearly establishes that the structure is resonant at ω o , 2ω o and 3ω o as is described above. Fig. 5 is a graph also plotting conversion loss (dB) as a function of frequency (MHz) and shows both theoretical and experimental data for resonances of a structure as illustrated in Fig. 2. The use of slightly different dimensional parameters accounts for the small differences between the theoretical curve in Fig. 5 and the theoretical curves of Fig. 4. It is apparent that the actual experimental structure is resonant at ω o , 2ω o and 3ω o and is consistent with the theoretical curve. Using the transducer shown in Fig. 2 in an acoustic ink printer, it is possible to obtain operation of the transducer of the frequency 2ω o which in turn enables marks to be imprinted on the recording medium that differ in area by a ratio of about 1:8, a useful ratio for grey scale printing. By using a variable number of these small droplets per pixel, it is possible to obtain additional incremental adjustability of pixel grey level.

Claims: A method of ejecting ink droplets in an acoustic ink printer using a transducer having a piezoelectric layer (13) between a first electrode (14) and a second electrode (12), each of said first electrode and piezoelectric layer having thicknesses such that, when energized, the transducers can be caused to oscillate at a fundamental frequency ω o and at at least the second harmonic 2ω o of said fundamental frequency to obtain an acoustic wave; the method comprising energizing said transducer to oscillate at the frequency ω o and at the frequency 2ω o for controlling the size of ink droplets that are ejected from the transducer. A method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the piezoelectric layer (13) and the first electrode (14) each have an acoustic thickness substantially equal to λ/4, where λ equals the wavelength of the fundamental frequency. A method as claimed in claim 1 or claim 2, wherein the transducer has a fundamental resonance in the megahertz range. A piezoelectric transducer for an acoustic ink printer comprising a liquid ink pool adjacent to the transducer, the transducer being operative at both its fundamental resonant frequency ω o and at at least its second harmonic for controlling the size of ink droplets generated from the pool. A piezoelectric transducer as claimed in claim 4, comprising a first electrode layer (12) on a substrate (11), a piezoelectric layer (13) disposed on said first electrode layer , and a second electrode layer (14) disposed on said piezoelectric layer, said second electrode layer having an acoustic thickness of essentially λ/4 and said piezoelectric layer having an acoustic thickness of essentially λ/4, where λ is the wavelength at the resonant frequency ω o . A piezoelectric transducer as claimed in claim 5, wherein said piezoelectric layer (13) is zinc oxide. A piezoelectric transducer as claimed in claim 5 or claim 6, wherein the electrode layers (12, 14) are metallic.

Inventors: HADIMIOGLU BABUR B, KHURI-YAKUB BUTRUS T, RAWSON ERIC G, HADIMIOGLU, BABUR B., KHURI-YAKUB, BUTRUS T., RAWSON, ERIC G.
Applicants: XEROX CORP, XEROX CORPORATION
Application year: 1992
Main classification: B06B1
IPC codes: B06B1, H01L41, B41J2, H04R17