1

1.2 Overview of Printing Technologies

Ref. H. Kipphan, Handbook of Print Media: Technologies and Production Methods, Springer, 2001, sec 1.3, ch 2, ch 5

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Overview of Printing Technologies

Two classes of printing technologies Technologies requiring a printing plate

Flexography, gravure, screen printing, micro-contact printing

Technologies not requiring a printing plate

Inkjet printing, laser printing

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Letterpress/Flexographic Printing

Characteristic of letterpress printing is The printing elements of the printing plate are

raised above the non-printing elements Flexographic printing is a type of letterpress

printing where printing plate is soft Printing can be done on rough surfaces & on

fabrics

ink splitting, fig. 1.3-5fig. 1.3-9

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Letterpress/Flexographic Printing

Questions Why anilox roller was introduced for inking the

printing stamp? Can directly roll printing stamp through the ink tan

k do the job? Why the printing was done in the liquid phase,

not in the solid phase?

contd

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Gravure Printing

Characteristic of gravure printing is The image elements are engraved into the

printing cylinder

Schematic of gravure printing (fig. 1.3-10)

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Gravure Printing

Questions Why the inking here is done through

directly rolling over the ink tank? Why the printing is done in the liquid

phase?

contd

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Lithography or Offset Printing

Characteristic of lithography is The printing and non-printing areas of the printing pla

te are on the same level The printing areas are made “ink-philic” (親墨水 ) w

hile the non-printing areas are “ink-phobic” (不親墨水 ).

Lithography was invented by the end of 18th century (yr 1796)

“The image to be printed was drawn on the stone with a special liquid. The stone was dampened before it was inked up, after which the non-image areas of the stone surface did not take on ink.”

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Lithography or Offset Printing

Schematic of lithography/offset printing (fig. 1.3-18)contd

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Lithography or Offset Printing

Ink transfer of offset printing (fig. 2.1-8)contd

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Lithography or Offset Printing

Questions How were the patterns created on the

printing stamp at the first place? What is the purpose of the blanket roller? Why are multiple rollers used in the ink

delivery subsystem?

contd

multiple rollers

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Screen Printing

“… a process in which ink is forced through a screen.”

Fig. 1.3-22

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Ink-Jet Printing Continuous vs. drop-on-demand ink-jet printing

Fig. 1.3-30

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Micro-Contact Printing – Chemisorption

A specially designed letterpress printing Proposed by Whitesides et al. in 1993 based on S

AM (self assembled monolayer) technique(CP)

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Micro-Contact Printing – Chemisorption

2 steps of SAM process 1. Chemisorption of "head

groups" onto a substrate 2. Self organization of "tail

groups"

contd

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self_assembled_monolayer

Schematic of self-assembly mechanism for alkanethiols on Au(111).(A) Thiols adopt the highly mobile lattice-gas phase at very low coverage. (B) Above a critical value of surface coverage, striped phase islands, characterized by surface-aligned molecular axes, nucleate heterogeneously and grow in equilibrium with a constant-pressure lattice gas. (C) Surface reaches saturation coverage of striped phase. (D) Surface undergoes lateral-pressure-reduced solid-solid phase transition by nucleation of high-density islands at striped-phase domain boundaries. (E) High density islands grow at the expense of the striped phase until the surface reaches saturation.

G. E. Poirier and E. D. Pylant, “The self-assembly mechanism of alkanethiols on Au(111),” Science 272 (1996) 1145-1148

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Micro-Contact Printing – Chemisorption

Two classes of SAM: thiol-based and silane-basedcontd

http://personalpages.manchester.ac.uk/staff/Sven.Koehler/media/index.html

thiol-based SAM silane-based SAM

http://nanostructure.usc.edu/research/bio1.shtml

221

n2

n2

HAuS)CH(R

AuSH)CH(R

OHOSi)OH(Si)CH(R

)OH(Si)OH(Si)CH(R

22n2

3n2

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Micro-Contact Printing – Physisorption

Deficiency of chemisorption CP Applications limited by few choices of SAM pairs of mol

ecule and substrate Physisorption CP exploiting physical adsorption,

for example through van der Waals interaction

stampstamp

Inking-pad

inking-pad

stampstamp

(2) Contact-Inking

stamp

stampstamp

substrate

substrate

(3) Contact-Printing(1) Ink-Pad Preparation

inking

ink-padspin-coater

ink-padspin-coater

Source: 呂冠毅 , 中正大學機械所碩士論文 , 2010