Monolithic ink-jet print head and method of fabricating the same

Abstract

A monolithic ink-jet print head and a method of fabricating the same are proposed, which not only can allow the nozzle device to be highly secured to the ink-jet print head, but also can allow the overall manufacturing process for the ink-jet print head to be more simplified and thus more cost-effective to implement as compared to the prior art. The monolithic ink-jet print head is constructed on a print-control chip formed with an array of transducers. A plurality of ink barrier layers are then formed from a first polymer over the print-control chip for separating the transducers from each other; and subsequently, a nozzle device is formed from a second polymer over the ink barrier layer. The second polymer is substantially equal or at least close in thermal expansion coefficient to the first polymer used to form the ink barrier layer. Therefore, the nozzle device would hardly break apart from the ink barrier layer after a long period of use that would easily occur in the prior art due to repeated unequal thermal expansions during operation. Moreover, the monolithic process to fabricate the ink-jet print head also allows the manufacture of the ink-jet print head to be easily carried out for mass production with reduced manufacturing cost simply through conventional semiconductor fabrication processes.