Inkjet printing of hybrid phase-change inks from Rohm and Haas with Xaar 126/50pl binary piezoelectric printheads was investigated. These inks consist of a wax-like phase-change component and a UV-curable component that enable to produce thermally stable resist pattern after curing. These properties make the hybrid phase-change inks well suitable for printing of masks for a variety of plating or etching processes.The print parameters for the hybrid inks were evaluated, and an operational window for best performance regarding drop formation and satellites was identified. With these print parameters it was possible to produce smooth lines and gaps as they are needed for resist masks. The width of the printed lines was 84μm at 470dpi printing resolution, while gaps of 47μm width were obtained at 527dpi. Furthermore, it was demonstrated that 2.5-dimensional free formed structures could be produced with multi-pass printing and intermittent UV-curing, with the capability to obtain single-pixel columns of 70μm diameter and up to 2mm in height.
Wolfgang Voit, Werner Zapka, Andreas Menzel, Florian Mezger, Tom Sutter, "Inkjet Printing of Phase-Change Materials" in Proc. IS&T Int'l Conf. on Digital Printing Technologies and Digital Fabrication (NIP24), 2008, pp 678 - 683, https://doi.org/10.2352/ISSN.2169-4451.2008.24.1.art00057_2