Formation and Stability of Lines Produced by Inkjet Printing

To produce stable lines with parallel sides through inkjet printing, individual drops are deposited on a surface so that they coalesce; this initial liquid line (or bead) must remain stable until it forms a solid. The stable line width is shown to be bounded by two limits, with the lower bound (minimum line width) determined by the maximum drop spacing for stable coalescence and the upper bound determined by the minimum drop spacing below which a bulging instability occurs. The maximum stable track width is also a function of the velocity at which an inkjet printhead traverses the substrate. These bounds are presented in dimensionless form and are shown to agree well with experiment. To enable easier determination of the stability of an arbitrary ink/substrate combination, both the upper and lower bounds are presented in graphical forms to define a region of bead stability in an appropriate parameter space.