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LABELS&LABELING |37<br />
THE DPH consists of a fiber taper – fiber optics which have been evenly stretched in such a way<br />
that they taper to become narrower and narrower in parallel, without crossing or changing position<br />
Printing at the<br />
speed of light<br />
PHOTONIC IMAGING has been around for a while, but a young company is promising to unlock<br />
new applications for the inkless printing process. David Pittman reports<br />
LumeJet was founded in January 2010<br />
to explore and develop commercial<br />
opportunities for new photonic<br />
technology developed at Warwick<br />
University.<br />
Photonics is the branch of technology<br />
concerned with the properties and<br />
transmission of photons. It was<br />
recently identified as one of the key<br />
enabling technologies (KET) critical<br />
to business-led innovation by the EU<br />
Commission’s 2020 New Horizon<br />
program.<br />
In terms of printing, it is a digital<br />
process that uses LEDs to interact with<br />
photo-activated media, as opposed to<br />
the inkjet process, whereby ink is jetted<br />
on to the substrate.<br />
LumeJet’s technology originates from<br />
a research project at Warwick University,<br />
sponsored and initiated by Trevor<br />
Elworthy, LumeJet CIO and founder,<br />
which was developed into the company’s<br />
Digital Print Head (DPH).<br />
The DPH consists of a fiber taper – fiber<br />
optics which have been evenly stretched<br />
in such a way that they taper to become<br />
narrower and narrower in parallel,<br />
without crossing or changing position.<br />
Light enters at one end and exits at the<br />
other through an LED array, passing<br />
through a lens stack and beaming a tiny<br />
dot onto photo-sensitive media to print<br />
inklessly.<br />
LumeJet’s technology is tailored to<br />
suit specific applications; the LumeJet<br />
S200 ultra-high resolution photo printer<br />
has a twin DPH configuration, with two<br />
heads mounted side by side, and prints<br />
a dot size less than 0.005mm onto color<br />
negative roll paper. Both identical heads<br />
have 288 LEDs, 96 calibrated for each<br />
of the three colors – red, green and<br />
blue (RGB). In the LumeJet S200, the<br />
printheads are moving and traverse the<br />
media in a single pass, edge to edge.<br />
LumeJet has now started work on a<br />
new system for high-speed industrial<br />
applications for photonic printing,<br />
such as inline labeling and packaging.<br />
LumeBar has clusters of LEDs mounted<br />
side by side across a static page-wide<br />
"LumeJet describes<br />
photonic digital printing<br />
as fast, clean, repeatable<br />
and micron-accurate, with<br />
the benefit that it can be<br />
applied to solid objects<br />
and flexible media."<br />
digital print bar, which will print directly<br />
onto designated areas of photo-sensitive<br />
media on the product as it goes past on<br />
the production line.<br />
LumeJet describes photonic digital<br />
printing as fast, clean, repeatable and<br />
micron-accurate, with the benefit that<br />
it can be applied to solid objects and<br />
flexible media.<br />
Miles Bentley, LumetJet’s commercial<br />
director, notes that photonic printing<br />
technology has been around for a<br />
NOVEMBER 2013 | L&L