Improved printhead for thermal ink jet devices

摘要

The nucleation efficiency of a thermal ink jet printhead is improved by providing a heater resistor with a thin planar oxide film formed over a conductive heater resistive layer. In a preferred embodiment, zirconium diboride is sputtered onto a silicon substrate surface to form a first, electrically conductive base portion of the resistor. At a predetermined time, during the sputtering process, oxygen is introduced to form a thin film of ZrB2Ox. The surface of this film is very smooth having a surface roughness of < 5 nm RMS. <IMAGE>