Imprimante | EPFL Graph Search

Une imprimante est un appareil, permettant d'obtenir un document sur papier à partir d'un modèle informatique du document. Par exemple, un texte écrit via un logiciel de traitement de texte sur ordinateur pourra être imprimé pour en obtenir une version papier (c'est un changement du support d'information). Les imprimantes ont été conçues dès l’apparition des premiers ordinateurs, pour permettre la consultation et la conservation sur support papier des résultats produits par les programmes informatiques. En effet, à l’époque des premiers calculateurs, les écrans n’existaient pas encore et les méthodes de stockage de l’information étaient très rudimentaires et très coûteuses. Avec le temps, les imprimantes ont énormément évolué dans leur méthode d’impression et de traction du papier, mais également dans leur qualité d’impression, leur encombrement et leur coût. L’informatisation massive des entreprises, les projets de « dématérialisation », et les économies escomptées par le « zéro p

Tomographic Volumetric Additive Manufacturing of Silicon Oxycarbide Ceramics

Antoine Vincent Boniface, Jürgen Brugger, Paul Delrot, Lorenz Hagelüken, Max Kollep, Georgia Konstantinou, Damien Claude-Marie Loterie, Jorge Andres Madrid Wolff, Christophe Moser

Ceramics are highly technical materials with properties of interest for multiple industries. Precisely because of their high chemical, thermal, and mechanical resistance, ceramics are difficult to mold into complex shapes. A possibility to make convoluted ceramic parts is to use preceramic polymers (PCP) in liquid form. The PCP resin is first solidified in a desired geometry and then transformed into ceramic compounds through a pyrolysis step that preserves the shape. Light-based additive manufacturing (AM) is a promising route to achieve solidification of the PCP resin. Different approaches, such as stereolithography, have already been proposed but they all rely on a layer-by-layer printing process which sets limitations on the printing speed and object geometry. Here, we report on the fabrication of complex 3D centimeter-scale ceramic parts by using tomographic volumetric printing, which is fast and offers a high resolution and geometrical design freedom. First, we formulated a photosensitive preceramic resin that was solidified by projecting light patterns from multiple angles. Then, the obtained 3D printed parts were converted into ceramics by pyrolysis. We demonstrate the strength of this approach through the fabrication of dense microcomponents exhibiting overhangs and hollow geometries without the need of supporting structures, and characterize their resistance to thermal stress and harsh chemical treatments.

2022

Prediction model for color separation, calibration and control of printers

Patrick Emmel, Roger Hersch

The present invention facilitates the calibration of printers and the color separation of input images into a set of inks by disclosing methods and systems for populating device-calibration lookup tables. The disclosed methods and systems rely on a comprehensive spectral prediction model which is capable of predicting at a high accuracy the reflectance spectra of halftone ink patches. The comprehensive spectral prediction model is composed of a first part predicting the reflection spectra as a function of physical (mechanical) surface coverages an of a second part comprising functions mapping nominal surface coverages to effective surface coverages. These mapping functions are calibrated by halftone patch wedges printed alone and by halftone patch wedges printed in superposition with one or several solid inks. The part of the comprehensive spectral prediction model predicting the reflection spectra relies on a weighted average between one component behaving according to the Clapper-Yule model and another component behaving as the spectral Neugebauer model, extended to include multiple internal reflections at the paper-air boundary. The disclosed methods and systems can perform the color separation as well as the calibration of printers printing with standard cyan, magenta, and yellow inks as well as with inks comprising standard and non-standard inks such as Pantone inks (custom inks). They are also used for performing precise undercolour removal in order to carry out the color separation of images into cyan, magenta, yellow and black inks. The can further be used to carry out the color separation of images into cyan, magenta, yellow, black, light cyan and light magenta inks. In addition, the disclosed methods and systems can be used for printer control, i.e. to control printer actuation parameters in different types of printers e.g. liquid ink professional printers (offset, gravure, letterpress), electrophotographic printers, ink-jet printers, thermal transfer printers and in dye-sublimation printers.

2005

Advances in High-Speed Atomic Force Microscopy

Adrian Pascal Nievergelt

High-speed atomic force microscopy (HS-AFM) is a scanning probe technique capable of recording processes at the nanometre scale in real time. By sequentially increasing the speed of individual microscope components, images of surfaces can be recorded at up to several images per second. We present a HS-AFM platform composed of custom¿built measurement head, controller and software, scanners and amplifiers that is shared with the community in an open¿hardware fashion. A new scanner design combined with an advanced control system is shown. The simple addition of a secondary actuator to widely available tube scanners increases the scan speed by over an order of magnitude while allowing for a 130 ¿m × 130 ¿m wide field of view, which is not possible with traditional high¿speed scanner designs. Controllers beyond standard proportional-integral controllers are capable of significantly increasing imaging speed by anticipating resonances. Such filters are cumbersome to design with conventional methods. It is shown how convex optimization can be used to design optimal controllers with guaranteed stability for atomic force microscopy in an automated fashion. By integrating two lasers into the small spot¿size optics of an AFM readout head we are able to use the first laser for detecting the deflection of the smallest, and thus fastest currently available high¿speed cantilevers, while using the second for photo¿thermal actuation. Using this instrument, we demonstrate multi¿frequency atomic force microscopy (MF-AFM) at previously not accessible frequencies of more than 20 MHz. By employing the driving laser not for resonant excitation as is usual in dynamic AFM, a new imaging mode, photothermal off-resonance tapping (PORT) is presented. By repeatedly thermally bending the cantilever below it¿s resonant frequency, the surface is probed at a rapid rate. The resulting force is extracted from the deflection of the cantilever in time¿ domain at real time and used for feedback and image generation. The dynamic and static force contributions in both PORT and state of the art high-speed amplitude modulation atomic force microscopy (AM-AFM) are measured and analyzed in detail. It is shown that by decoupling the driving frequency from the resonant frequency the dynamic tip¿sample impact forces can be drastically reduced when compared to resonance based AFM modes. SAS-6 is a centriolar scaffolding protein with a crucial role in the duplication of centrioles, which are the main microtubule organizing organelle of eukaryotic cells. Defects in centriole duplication are associated with cancer and microencephaly. To understand these defects, is therefore important to understand the kinetics of SAS-6. In¿vitro, SAS-6 polymerizes into rings of between eight and ten monomers. Using the new PORT mode we are able to study the dynamic assembly of SAS-6. It is shown how SAS-6 rings can not only assemble by canonical one-by-one addition, but can form as a fusion of larger, already assembled fragments. Finally, it is shown how PORT can be used to observe fast processes of and on living cells. The adhesion and detachment of thrombocyte cells is studied. Membrane disruptive effects are shown on gram¿negative as well as gram¿positive bacteria.