Membrane-Assisted Thermal Inkjet (MA-TIJ) Droplet Ejection for TIJ-Incompatible Inks*

Thermal inkjet (TIJ) drop-on-demand (DOD) technology ejects a droplet of ink by rapidly heating a micro-resistor to cause explosive boiling. Throughout the last four decades, material limitations have been a long-standing issue in TIJ technology. Existing TIJ-compatible inks almost exclusively rely on solvent-based or aqueous-based inks that can nucleate a strong vapor bubble and withstand high temperatures, limiting material choices. We report a new TIJ-based architecture, ``membrane-assisted thermal inkjet (MA-TIJ),'' for drop ejection of previously TIJ-incompatible inks. We characterized jetting using fluid-structure interaction modeling as well as high-speed imaging and showed the ability to jet dimethyl sulfoxide and mineral oil using our MA-TIJ architecture, previously TIJ-incompatible inks, opening up the range of available materials in TIJ technology.