Inkjet nozzle device having improved lifetime

Abstract

An inkjet nozzle device includes a MEMS structure in contact with ink, wherein a tantalum oxide layer is deposited on at least part of the MEMS structure for inhibiting corrosion by the ink.

Claims

1. An inkjet nozzle device comprising: an aluminide heater element having native passivating oxide; a discrete tantalum oxide layer is deposited directly on the aluminide heater element; and a discrete metal oxide layer deposited directly on the tantalum oxide layer, wherein the aluminide heater element lacks any additional tantalum metal or tantalum oxide layers.

2. The inkjet nozzle device of claim 1, wherein the tantalum oxide layer is deposited by atomic layer deposition.

3. The inkjet nozzle device of claim 1, wherein the tantalum oxide layer has a thickness in the range of 10 to 50 nm.

4. The inkjet nozzle device of claim 1, wherein the metal oxide layer is a layer of aluminium oxide.

5. The inkjet nozzle device of claim 1, wherein the aluminide heater element is positioned in a nozzle chamber having a roof defining a nozzle aperture, a floor, and sidewalls extending between the roof and the floor.

6. The inkjet nozzle device of claim 5, wherein the aluminide heater element is bonded to the floor of the nozzle chamber.

7. The inkjet nozzle device of claim 6, wherein the aluminide heater element is comprised of an intermetallic compound of formula TiAlX, wherein X comprises one or more elements selected from the group consisting of Ag, Cr, Mo, Nb, Si, Ta and W.

Description

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

(1) Embodiments of the present invention will now be described by way of example only with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which:

(2) FIG. 1 is a cutaway perspective view of part of a printhead having a heater element bonded to a floor of a nozzle chamber;

(3) FIG. 2 is a plan view of one of the inkjet nozzle devices shown in FIG. 1;

(4) FIG. 3 is a sectional side view of one of the inkjet nozzle devices shown in FIG. 1;

(5) FIG. 4 is a schematic side view of a coated resistive heater element; and

(6) FIG. 5 shows lifetimes of various heater elements.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

(7) Inkjet Nozzle Device Having Bonded Heater Element

(8) Referring to FIGS. 1 to 3, there is shown an inkjet nozzle device 10 as described in U.S. application Ser. No. 14/310,353 filed on Jun. 20, 2014, the contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.

(9) The inkjet nozzle device comprises a main chamber 12 having a floor 14, a roof 16 and a perimeter wall 18 extending between the floor and the roof. Typically, the floor is defined by a passivation layer covering a CMOS layer 20 containing drive circuitry for each actuator of the printhead. FIG. 1 shows the CMOS layer 20, which may comprise a plurality of metal layers interspersed with interlayer dielectric (ILD) layers.

(10) In FIG. 1 the roof 16 is shown as a transparent layer so as to reveal details of each nozzle device 10. Typically, the roof 16 is comprised of a material, such as silicon dioxide or silicon nitride.

(11) Referring now to FIG. 2, the main chamber 12 of the nozzle device 10 comprises a firing chamber 22 and an antechamber 24. The firing chamber 22 comprises a nozzle aperture 26 defined in the roof 16 and an actuator in the form of a resistive heater element 28 bonded to the floor 14. The antechamber 24 comprises a main chamber inlet 30 (floor inlet 30) defined in the floor 14.

(12) The main chamber inlet 30 meets and partially overlaps with an endwall 18B of the antechamber 24. This arrangement optimizes the capillarity of the antechamber 24, thereby encouraging priming and optimizing chamber refill rates.

(13) A baffle wall or plate 32 partitions the main chamber 12 to define the firing chamber 22 and the antechamber 24. The baffle plate 32 extends between the floor 14 and the roof 16. As shown most clearly in FIG. 3, the side edges of the baffle plate 32 are typically rounded, so as to minimize the risk of roof cracking. (Sharp angular corners in the baffle plate 32 tend to concentrate stress in the roof 16 and floor 14, thereby increasing the risk of cracking).

(14) The nozzle device 10 has a plane of symmetry extending along a nominal y-axis of the main chamber 12. The plane of symmetry is indicated by the broken line S in FIG. 2 and bisects the nozzle aperture 26, the heater element 28, the baffle plate 32 and the main chamber inlet 30.

(15) The antechamber 24 fluidically communicates with the firing chamber 22 via a pair of firing chamber entrances 34 which flank the baffle plate 32 on either side thereof. Each firing chamber entrance 34 is defined by a gap extending between a respective side edge of the baffle plate 32 and the perimeter wall 18. Typically, the baffle plate 32 occupies about half the width of the main chamber 12 along the x-axis, although it will be appreciated that the width of the baffle plate may vary based on a balance between optimal refill rates and optimal symmetry in the firing chamber 22.

(16) The nozzle aperture 26 is elongate and takes the form of an ellipse having a major axis aligned with the plane of symmetry S. The heater element 28 takes the form of an elongate bar having a central longitudinal axis aligned with the plane of symmetry S. Hence, the heater element 28 and elliptical nozzle aperture 26 are aligned with each other along their y-axes.

(17) As shown in FIG. 2, the centroid of the nozzle aperture 26 is aligned with the centroid of the heater element 28. However, it will be appreciated that the centroid of the nozzle aperture 26 may be slightly offset from the centroid of the heater element 28 with respect to the longitudinal axis of the heater element (y-axis). Offsetting the nozzle aperture 26 from the heater element 28 along the y-axis may be used to compensate for the small degree of asymmetry about the x-axis of the firing chamber 22. Nevertheless, where offsetting is employed, the extent of offsetting will typically be relatively small (e.g. about 2 microns or less).

(18) The heater element 28 extends between an end wall 18A of the firing chamber 22 (defined by one side of the perimeter wall 18) and the baffle plate 32. The heater element 28 may extend an entire distance between the end wall 18A and the baffle plate 32, or it may extend substantially the entire distance (e.g. 90 to 99% of the entire distance) as shown in FIG. 2. If the heater element 28 does not extend an entire distance between the end wall 18A and the baffle plate 32, then a centroid of the heater element 28 still coincides with a midpoint between the end wall 18A and the baffle plate 32 in order to maintain a high degree of symmetry about the x-axis of firing chamber 22. In other words a gap between the end wall 18A and one end of the heater element 28 is equal to a gap between the baffle plate 32 and the opposite end of the heater element.

(19) The heater element 28 is connected at each end thereof to respective electrodes 36 exposed through the floor 14 of the main chamber 12 by one or more vias 37. Typically, the electrodes 36 are defined by an upper metal layer of the CMOS layer 20. The vias 27 may be filled with any suitable conductive material (e.g. copper, aluminium, tungsten etc.) to provide electrical connection between the heater element 28 and the electrodes 36. A suitable process for forming electrode connections from the heater element 28 to the electrodes 36 is described in U.S. Pat. No. 8,453,329, the contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.

(20) In some embodiments, at least part of each electrode 36 is positioned directly beneath an end wall 18A and baffle plate 32 respectively. This arrangement advantageously improves the overall symmetry of the device 10, as well as minimizing the risk of the heater element 28 delaminating from the floor 14.

(21) As shown most clearly in FIG. 1, the main chamber 12 is defined in a blanket layer of material 40 deposited onto the floor 14 by a suitable etching process (e.g. plasma etching, wet etching, photo etching etc.). The baffle plate 32 and the perimeter wall 18 are defined simultaneously by this etching process, which simplifies the overall MEMS fabrication process. Hence, the baffle plate 32 and perimeter wall 18 are comprised of the same material, which may be any suitable etchable ceramic or polymer material suitable for use in printheads. Typically, the material is silicon dioxide or silicon nitride.

(22) Referring back to FIG. 2, it can be seen that the main chamber 12 is generally rectangular having two longer sides and two shorter sides. The two shorter sides define end walls 18A and 18B of the firing chamber 22 and the antechamber 24, respectively, while the two longer sides define contiguous sidewalls of the firing chamber and antechamber. Typically, the firing chamber 22 has a larger volume than the antechamber 24.

(23) A printhead 100 may be comprised of a plurality of inkjet nozzle devices 10. The partial cutaway view of the printhead 100 in FIG. 1 shows only two inkjet nozzle devices 10 for clarity. The printhead 100 is defined by a silicon substrate 102 having the passivated CMOS layer 20 and a MEMS layer containing the inkjet nozzle devices 10. As shown in FIG. 1, each main chamber inlet 30 meets with an ink supply channel 104 defined in a backside of the printhead 100. The ink supply channel 104 is generally much wider than the main chamber inlets 30 and effectively a bulk supply of ink for hydrating each main chamber 12 in fluid communication therewith. Each ink supply channel 104 extends parallel with one or more rows of nozzle devices 10 disposed at a frontside of the printhead 100. Typically, each ink supply channel 104 supplies ink to a pair of nozzle rows (only one row shown in FIG. 1 for clarity), in accordance with the arrangement shown in FIG. 21B of U.S. Pat. No. 7,441,865.

(24) The inkjet nozzle device 10 has been described above purely for the sake of completeness. Nevertheless, it will be appreciated that the present invention is applicable to any type of inkjet nozzle device comprising a resistive heater element. The skilled person will be readily aware of many such devices, as described in the prior art.

(25) Aluminide Heater Element Having Coating Layer

(26) Referring now to FIG. 4, there is shown a side view of a heater element 28, which includes a tantalum oxide coating layer 283 deposited by ALD. The heater element 28 may be employed in the inkjet nozzle device 10, as described above, or any other suitable thermal inkjet device known in the art.

(27) The heater element 28 comprises a 0.3 micron titanium aluminide layer 281 formed by conventional sputtering, a native aluminium oxide layer 282 on a surface of the titanium aluminide layer 281, and a 20 nm tantalum oxide coating layer 283 covering the native aluminium oxide layer 282. Notably, the native aluminium oxide layer 282 and the tantalum oxide coating layer 283 are very thin layers, which have minimal impact on the thermal efficiency of the heater element 28.

(28) The coating layer 283 may be deposited by any suitable ALD process. Suitable ALD processes will be readily to apparent those skilled in the art and are described in, for example, Liu et al, J. Electrochemical Soc., 152(3), G213-G219, (2005); and Matero et al, J. Phys. IV France, 09 (1999), PR8, 493-499.

(29) The coating layer 283 may be deposited at any suitable stage of MEMS fabrication. For example, the coating layer 283 is preferably deposited immediately after deposition of the aluminide layer 281 as part of a front-end MEMS process flow during printhead integrated circuit (IC) fabrication. Alternatively, the ALD process may be employed as a retrofit process for existing printhead ICs in order to improve printhead lifetimes.

(30) Experimental Section

(31) Fabricated printhead ICs having bonded heater elements were cleaned in DMSO solvent, washed with ethanol then deionized water, and dried using filtered compressed air. The bonded heater element of each printhead IC was comprised of a 300 nm layer of titanium aluminide (50% titanium; 50% aluminium). After cleaning, washing and drying, the printhead ICs were then placed in a standard ALD chamber and treated with an oxygen plasma for 10 minutes. Following oxygen treatment, at least one coating layer was deposited by a high-temperature (400 C.) ALD process. Using Auger Electron Spectroscopy (AES), a native aluminium oxide layer of the titanium aluminide, which is subjacent the ALD-deposited coating layer, was estimated to have a thickness of about 20 nm.

(32) Following ALD treatment, an individual printhead IC was mounted in a modified printing rig and primed with a standard black dye-based ink using a suitably modified ink delivery system. A start-of-life test of print quality as a function of drive energy was conducted to set actuation pulse widths at a value which replicates operation in an otherwise unmodified printer. The drive energies and device geometries of each printhead IC are configured for venting bubbles through nozzle apertures during droplet ejection.

(33) In this configuration the printhead IC was subjected to repeat cycles of: i) a resistance measurement for all heaters, ii) a print quality test, and iii) a number of bulk actuations over a spittoon with a consistent and uniform print pattern simulating the ageing of a device in a real print system. The device was maintained with an automatic wiping system mimicking the maintenance routine in an unmodified printer. Maintenance was conducted prior to both the print quality test and spittoon aging; additional maintenance was conducted regularly during the spittoon printing at the equivalent of every 50 pages of normal printing.

(34) An individual heater was deemed to be open-circuit (bad) when it reached a resistance of 100 Ohms; any heater with a resistance of <100 Ohms was deemed to be a good heater. It was further observed that the print quality over life was acceptable whilst the majority of the heaters tested were good, and that print quality became unacceptable at an inflection point where a small but significant number of heaters started to fail.

(35) FIG. 5 shows the results of initial testing on heater elements having no ALD coating, a 20 nm ALD aluminium oxide coating, and a 20 nm ALD tantalum oxide coating. From FIG. 5, it can be seen that the heater elements with no ALD coating failed at about 400 million ejections. Surprisingly, the heater elements having a 20 nm ALD aluminium oxide coating failed more quickly (at about 200 million ejections) than the uncoated heater elements. However, the heater elements having a 20 nm ALD tantalum oxide coating continued to operate with minimal failures and good print quality up to about 1700 million ejectionsthe highest number of ejections observed for this type of printhead IC.

(36) Table 1 summarizes the results of various other ALD coatings tested with a dye-based ink, in accordance with the printhead lifetime experimental protocol described above.

(37) TABLE-US-00001 TABLE 1 Printhead Lifetime Testing With Various ALD Coatings Number of ejections ALD Coating(s).sup.a before failure Example 1 20 nm Ta.sub.2O.sub.5 1700 million Comparative Example 1 none 400 million Comparative Example 2 20 nm Al.sub.2O.sub.3 200 million Comparative Example 3 20 nm TiO.sub.2 <5 million Comparative Example 4 20 nm TiO.sub.2 + 20 nm Al.sub.2O.sub.3 150 million Comparative Example 4 (2 nm TiO.sub.2 + 2 nm Al.sub.2O.sub.3) 10 150 million Comparative Example 5 20 nm Al.sub.2O.sub.3 + 20 nm HfO.sub.2 400 million Comparative Example 6 20 nm Al.sub.2O.sub.3 + 20 nm Ta.sub.3N.sub.5 250 million Comparative Example 7 20 nm Al.sub.2O.sub.3 + 20 nm Ta.sub.2O.sub.5 250 million .sup.aFor multilayered coatings, the layer deposited first is mentioned first in Table 1.

(38) It was concluded that the 20 nm tantalum oxide coating and the native oxide of the titanium aluminide behave synergistically to provide a particularly effective laminate coating of the heater element. This synergy was not observed for other ALD coating layers tested, such as titanium oxide, aluminium oxide and combinations thereof. Moreover, even if a 20 nm ALD aluminium oxide layer is deposited between the tantalum oxide layer and the native oxide layer, then relatively poor lifetimes result (see Comparative Examples 5 and 7).

(39) Without wishing to be bound by theory, it is understood by the present inventors that the native aluminium oxide layer provides low oxygen diffusivity which minimizes oxidation of the titanium aluminide via ingress of adventitious dissolved oxygen in the ink. Furthermore, the tantalum oxide layer protects the native oxide layer from the corrosive aqueous ink environment, as well as providing mechanical robustness. In contrast with the native oxide layer, it appears that an ALD aluminium oxide layer disrupts the effectiveness of a superjacent tantalum oxide layer, rendering this combination less effective. This may be due to a microstructural incompatibility between ALD aluminium oxide and tantalum oxide layers, which is not evident for the native oxide.

(40) From the initial testing, it was clear that the ALD tantalum oxide coating, when deposited directly onto the native oxide layer of titanium aluminide, produced an outstanding heater lifetime result. It was anticipated that similar transition metal oxides (e.g. hafnium oxide) deposited by ALD directly onto the native oxide layer would produce similar results to tantalum oxide. Table 2 shows the results of various hafnium oxide and tantalum oxide coatings with both aqueous dye-based and pigment-based inks.

(41) TABLE-US-00002 TABLE 2 Printhead Lifetime Testing With Ta.sub.2O.sub.5 and HfO.sub.2 ALD Coatings Number of ejections ALD Coating(s).sup.b Ink type before failure Example 1 20 nm Ta.sub.2O.sub.5 dye 1700 million Comparative none dye 400 million Example 1 Comparative 20 nm HfO.sub.2 dye 305 million Example 8 Comparative 40 nm multilayer: dye 230 million Example 9.sup.a [(6 nm HfO.sub.2 + 1 nm Ta.sub.2O.sub.5) 4] + 6 nm HfO.sub.2 + 6 nm Ta.sub.2O.sub.5 Example 2 20 nm Ta.sub.2O.sub.5 + 6 nm Al.sub.2O.sub.3 dye 900 million Example 3 20 nm Ta.sub.2O.sub.5 pigment 1265 million Example 4 40 nm Ta.sub.2O.sub.5 dye 1105 million Example 5 40 nm Ta.sub.2O.sub.5 pigment 1200 million .sup.bFor multilayered coatings, the layer deposited first is mentioned first in Table 2.

(42) Surprisingly, when hafnium oxide was deposited onto the native oxide layer, heater lifetimes were still worse than having no ALD coating layer at all (Comparative Examples 1 and 8). Even more surprising was that, with an alternating stack of hafnium oxide and tantalum oxide, heater lifetimes were still significantly worse than having no ALD coating layer at all (Comparative Examples 1 and 9). These results suggest that the efficacy of ALD coatings may not be due to the composition of the coating(s) per se, but is in fact more strongly linked to the interface between the ALD coating layer and its subjacent layer. In particular, it was observed that there is a unique synergy between a tantalum oxide ALD layer and a subjacent native oxide layer of titanium aluminide. Conversely, it appears that other ALD layers (e.g. titanium oxide, aluminium oxide, hafnium oxide) decrease heater lifetimes relative to the uncoated heater element, possibly via disruption of the protective native oxide layer of the aluminide.

(43) In summary, the present invention provides excellent heater lifetimes using an ALD tantalum oxide layer deposited directly onto the native oxide of aluminide heater elements. The use of a single ALD coating layer is advantageous, because it potentially reduces MEMS fabrication complexity and does not impact on self-cooling operation of inkjet nozzle devices.

(44) Additional wear-prevention and/or cavitation layer(s), such as tantalum metal, on the ALD tantalum oxide layer may be avoided by configuring the inkjet nozzle devices for bubble-venting during droplet ejection. Suitable chamber configurations for bubble venting through the nozzle aperture during droplet ejection are described in U.S. application Ser. No. 14/540,999, the contents of which are incorporated herein by reference. In this way, the number and thickness of coating layers is minimized, which improves thermal efficiency, lowers drop ejection energies and enables self-cooling operation for pagewidth printing.

(45) It will, of course, be appreciated that the present invention has been described by way of example only and that modifications of detail may be made within the scope of the invention, which is defined in the accompanying claims.