A Pre-actuation Method for Initial Droplets Accurateness of Inkjet Printing with Volatile Materials

A pre-actuation method for initial droplets accurateness of inkjet printing with volatile materials is proposed. Inkjet printing has been used as the low-cost and efficient manufacturing technology indifferent fields. Some fields such as the electronics industry require precise drop-on-demand. The initial droplets, as reported by some research, are different in morphology, trajectory, velocity, and volume from subsequent drops within a burst. In this study, firstly drops dissimilarity caused by evaporation on meniscus surface was investigated. In order to improve the accuracy of initial droplets, the pre-actuating waveform was used to condition the meniscus. Experimental results showed that the input pre-actuation waveform is optimized such that the difference between the initial drops and subsequent drops behavior is minimized.