A plastic card personalization system with a drop-on-demand plastic card print station that prints radiation curable material, a plasma treatment station, and a radiation curing station. By using a combination of controlling plasma treatment conditions on the surface of the plastic card prior to DOD printing together with controlling the dwell time of the printed material applied to the plastic card prior to full curing of the printed material, a surprising and unexpected improvement of the adhesion of the printed material to the plastic card is achieved.

In a printed article, pigment flakes are magnetically aligned so as to form curved patterns in a plurality of cross-sections normal a continuous imaginary line, wherein radii of the curved patterns increase along the imaginary line from the first point to the second point. When light is incident upon the aligned pigment Hakes from a light source, light reflected from the aligned pattern forms a bright image which appears to gradually change its shape and move from one side of the continuous imaginary line to another side of the continuous imaginary line when the substrate is tilted with respect to the light source.

According to examples, a substrate may be moved through a magnetic field, in which the substrate includes a fluid carrier containing magnetically-orientable flakes. The magnetic field may influence the magnetically-orientable flakes to be respectively oriented in one of multiple orientations. In addition, during movement of the substrate through the magnetic field, radiation may be applied onto a plurality of selected portions of the fluid carrier through at least one opening in a mask to cure the fluid carrier at the plurality of selected portions and fix the magnetically-orientable flakes in the plurality of selected portions at the respective angular orientations as influenced by the magnetic field.

The present invention relates to the field of magnetic assemblies and processes for producing optical effect layers (OEL) comprising magnetically oriented non-spherical magnetic or magnetizable pigment particles on a substrate. In particular, the present invention relates magnetic assemblies and processes for producing said OELs as anti-counterfeit means on security documents or security articles or for decorative purposes.

The invention relates to the field of the protection of security documents such as for example banknotes and identity documents against counterfeit and illegal reproduction. In particular, the present invention provides processes for optical effect layers (OEL) exhibiting one or more indicia using a magnetic assembly comprising i) a soft magnetic plate (x31) comprising a) one or more voids (V) and b) one or more dipole magnets (x32-a), wherein the one or more dipole magnets (x32-a) are disposed within the one or more voids (V) and/or are facing said one or more voids (V), and/or one or more pairs of two dipole magnets (x32-b), wherein the dipole magnets (x32-b) of the one or more pairs are disposed below the soft magnetic plate (x31) and are spaced apart from the one or more voids (V).

Provided is a method for applying an ink for applying an oil-based ink to a resin composition layer of a target including a base and the resin composition layer formed over a surface of the base, the method including: a pretreatment step of pre-treating the target before the oil-based ink is applied, with at least one surface treatment for improving a wetting/spreading property of the oil-based ink; a step of applying the oil-based ink to the target that has undergone the pretreatment step; and a post-treatment step of post-treating the target after the oil-based ink is applied, with at least one surface treatment for improving a wetting/spreading property of the oil-based ink.

A printing apparatus is provided that has: a printing part that performs printing by depositing a recording composition on the surface of a printing medium; a plasma generation part that is constituted by a plasma generation chamber having an introduction port for introducing a gaseous flow of plasma material gas to the interior, wherein the plasma material gas is converted to a plasma in the interior to form a gaseous flow of plasma-modified gas, as well as a plasma release port for releasing the gaseous flow to the exterior; and a plasma irradiation part that brings a gaseous flow released from the plasma release port, which contains the plasma-modified gas and/or plasma-quenched gas formed therefrom, in contact with the surface of the printing medium that has been printed at the printing part. The printing apparatus can fully dry/cure a printed recording composition.

A plasma-curable ink composition for offset printing having high reactivity with plasma and capable of being hardened into a sufficiently dried state even in the use of plasma generated by a remote-type plasma generator, and a method for producing printed matter and a method for printing information using the same. The plasma-curable ink composition for offset printing comprises a pigment, a binder resin, and at least one specific ingredient selected from the group consisting of castor oil, polymerized oil, and alkyd resins having an acid value of 10 mg KOH/g or more.

Provided is a method for applying an ink for applying an oil-based ink to a resin composition layer of a target including a base and the resin composition layer formed over a surface of the base, the method including: a pretreatment step of pre-treating the target before the oil-based ink is applied, with at least one surface treatment for improving a wetting/spreading property of the oil-based ink; a step of applying the oil-based ink to the target that has undergone the pretreatment step; and a post-treatment step of post-treating the target after the oil-based ink is applied, with at least one surface treatment for improving a wetting/spreading property of the oil-based ink.

Provided is an electromagnetic wave generator including: an electromagnetic wave generation section that generates an electromagnetic wave; a high-frequency voltage generation section that generates a voltage applied to the electromagnetic wave generation section; and a transmission line that electrically couples the electromagnetic wave generation section and the high-frequency voltage generation section to each other, in which the electromagnetic wave generation section includes a first electrode, a second electrode, a first conductor that electrically couples the first electrode and the transmission line to each other, and a second conductor that electrically couples the second electrode and the transmission line to each other, one of the first electrode or the second electrode is a reference potential electrode to which a reference potential is applied and the other is a high-frequency electrode to which a high-frequency voltage is applied, a minimum separation distance between the first electrode and the second electrode is 1/10 or less of a wavelength of an output electromagnetic wave, a minimum separation distance between the first conductor and the second conductor is 1/10 or less of a wavelength of an output electromagnetic wave, and the first conductor further includes a coil, and the coil is closer to the first electrode than the transmission line.