Media Characteristics of Laser Induced Melt Transfer Printing

Abstract

Several studies of media characteristics of Laser Induced Melt Transfer (LIMT) have been done in this report. Print experiments have been made, using different sorts of wax and thickness of wax layer, and the effect of back heating has been investigated. A two dimensional thermal diffusion model has been developed especially for study of the print mechanism of LIMT, in which heat of fusion of the wax layer is taken into account. The model has produced a curve of “print energy vs. power density” by introducing the threshold temperature.
The following conclusions have been drawn.
(1) It was difficult to change the formulation for the wax layer for the reduction of the print energy. Back heating had a large effect on it.
(2) The comparison of the model with the experimental results suggests the temperature in the centre of the pixel affects the ink transfer process and the adhesion in the centre of the pixel is important in the LIMT process.