Definition of inkjet printer

A Dictionary of Computing
© A Dictionary of processing 2004, initially published by Oxford University Press 2004.

inkjet printer a production device that produces figures and layouts by firing a stream of ink falls at an area from or more banks of small nozzles. The fast displacement necessary to eject the drops from nozzles might accomplished by surface boiling of this ink making use of small electric heating elements behind each nozzle, or by mechanical force making use of piezoelectric crystals behind the nozzles. The technology is rolling out to the extent that these types of printers can (on ideal news) offer similar resolution and high quality to the laser printer but at a much less expensive. Inkjet technology can also be suited to color publishing, nozzles becoming given with three to four various shade inks (see CMY, CMYK color designs). Inkjet printers may also act as plotters.

You will find three primary kinds of inkjet product. Into the continuous inkjet printer a continuous blast of electrically charged ink drops tend to be fired toward the surface. The required image is done by deflecting unwanted falls into a gutter. The drop-on-demand inkjet printer fires ink only at the things of the surface essential to produce the desired picture. The phase-change inkjet printer utilizes solid-ink which heated such that it makes the nozzle as a liquid but returns into the solid-state because reaches the image area; an important advantage is it generally does not need special paper permanently results as other inkjet devices do.

Considerable improvements have been made in recent years many inkjet printers can create prints of photographic quality, though there are problems about the long-term security of dyes made use of.