FABRICATION OF A MAGNETIC TRANSDUCER COMPOSED OF A HIGH-DENSITY ARRAYOF MICROELECTROMAGNETS WITH ON-CHIP ELECTRONICS

The realization of a new printing head involves the design and the bat ch fabrication of high-density arrays of microelectromagnets (1000 dev ices/cm2) which are sequentially addressed by on-chip integrated diode matrices. These smart magnetic actuators are achieved by a suitable c ombination of techniques belonging to standard silicon microelectronic s, silicon microstructuring and electrochemical deposition. The magnet ic fluxes generated by flat inductive coils located on the front face of a silicon substrate are concentrated by FeNi magnetic cores extendi ng through the substrate thickness. The new technology has been succes sfully used for realizing high-performance magnetographic printing-bea ds producing a maximum induction of about 1.4 tesla.