Recent Developments and Trends in Technology Printed Design and Fabrication Processes. Today the ink-jet technologies most active in laboratories and in the market are the thermal and piezoelectric drop-on-demand ink-jet methods. In a basic configuration, a thermal ink-jet consists of an ink chamber having a heater with a nozzle nearby. With a current pulse of less than a few microseconds through the heater, heat is transferred from the surface of the heater to the ink. The ink becomes superheated to the critical temperature for bubble nucleation, for water-based ink, this temperature is around 300°C. When the nucleation occurs, a water vapor bubble instantaneously expand to force the ink out of the nozzle. Once all the heat stored in the ink is used, the bubble begins to collapse on the surface of the heater. Concurrently with the bubble collapse, the ink droplet breaks off and excels toward the paper. The whole process of bubble formation and collapse takes place in less than 10 µs. The ink then refills back into the chamber and the process is ready to begin again. Depending on the channel geometry and ink's physical properties, the ink refill time can be from 80 to 200 µs. This process is illustrated reillustrates the same process by plotting the parameters including electrical pulse, temperature, pressure, and bubble volume against time.