Inkjet Printing

Inkjet printing is a type of computer printing that recreates a digital image by propelling very fine droplets of ink onto a substrate such as paper, plastic, wood or metal. Development began in earnest in the early 1950s, and two engineers working independently arrived at similar approaches: Ichiro Endo at Canon proposed what became known as bubble jet printing, while Jon Vaught at Hewlett-Packard developed a comparable technology; by the late 1970s, Epson, Hewlett-Packard and Canon had all produced inkjet printers capable of reproducing computer-generated images, and those three companies, together with Brother, now account for most consumer inkjet printer sales worldwide. In 1982 Robert Howard built a small color printing system using piezoelectric technology to eject ink drops and founded R.H. Research, later renamed Howtek, which went on to develop the Pixelmaster color printer using solid ink and Thermojet technology; inkjet technology has since been adapted beyond paper printing to deposit solder paste in circuit assembly and to deposit living cells for biosensors and tissue engineering.