Inkski CEO and Founder Daniel Hall would like to thank all those involved, particularly employees:
* Chris Jordan, Senior Technologist
* Christoph Bittner, Senior Scientist
* Bryan Palpreyman, Director of Business Development
and other contributors and supporters including Alex, Robert B, Hugh, Hermann, Sherry, Robert S, David, Providence, GEIF, Cambridge Angels, Xaar and NESTA. Also the East of England Development Agency and collaborators, FFEI, BlueGnome and Xennia.
Inkski Ltd was an ambitious endeavour and we learnt a lot. Before turning the page completely, here are some of the research highlights from Inkski.
Research Highlights
LILO
Inkski developed a prototype printing technology Light Initiated Liquid Offset (LILO):
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The above-middle picture shows stable drops formed on the surface of a rapidly rotating cylinder. The drops are formed on top of 3D micro-structures formed on a cylinder surface (below).
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Liquid ink experiencing high centripetal acceleration (to 10,000 g) forms into pendant drops defined by the 3D geometry formed on the cylinder surface.
Stitch
In order to make the above structures Inkski developed a cylinder surface ablation technology ‘Stitch’ for writing 3D structures directly onto a spinning cylinder with a picosecond laser. The system provided 2 micron lateral resolution and 100nm depth resolution driven with data from a digital depth map.
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We were then able to selectively eject drops from the 3D micro-structures with a further laser system (blue fluorescent trace below-left) to demonstrate the capability to form and eject drops consistent with digital printing at 10m/s.
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The conclusion of research on LILO was that digital printing at offset speeds is certainly possible, although not directly using the mechanism Inkski was able to prototype. However it seems likely that within the next 20 years a digital offset-like technology will emerge to replace all conventional offset printing. Due to inherent physical constraints this future digital technology is likely to have
more in common with the conventional offset printing process than current inkjet or laser printing technologies.
MAP
Subsequently Inkski worked on a European funded project to develop an inkjet DNA printer, creating a novel inkjet technology called Multiplex Array Printing (MAP).
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MAP used an inertial inkjet printing method that allowed printing of many inks in parallel from a 2D array of nozzles. Inkski delivered a prototype printing system with a custom MAP printhead capable of printing 36 DNA solutions into 72 spots; forming a sequence of 2 x 2 mm micorarrays in a single-pass of the substrate.
Due to prior art discovered during the patenting process Inkski was not able to adequately protect the IP for the MAP technology and active development was eventually discontinued.
Dr Daniel Hall can be contacted at:
