Zink Technology

Zink Technology

Zink uses zero ink and is a full-color printing system that eliminates the needs for ink cartridges,toners or ribbons. It has embedded cyan, yellow, and magenta dye crystals. Zink Paper looks like regular white photo photo paper. The ZINK-enabled device uses heat to activate and colorize these crystals. Zink Technology and Zink Imaging started as a project inside Polaroid Corporation in the 1990s which spun out Zink as a fully independent company in 2005.

About zink Technology paper,the paper has several layers: a backing layer with optional pressure sensitive adhesive, heat-sensitive layers with cyan, magenta and yellow dyes in colorless form, and overcoat.The color addressing is achieved by controlling the heat pulse length and intensity.

Zink Holdings makes all the paper;makes a printer for printing labels and other designs on rolls of Zink zRoll; and licenses its technology to other companies that make compact photo printers, and combined camera / compact photo printers that print photographs onto mostly 2×3” (about 5×8 cm) sheets of Zink Paper. Key licensees include HP, Lifeprint, Prynt, and C&A Global

The color-forming layers contain colorless crystals of amorphochromic dyes. These dyes form microcrystals of their colorless tautomers, which convert to the colored form by melting and retain color after resolidification.

The yellow layer is the topmost one, sensitive to short heat pulses of high temperature. The magenta layer is in the middle, sensitive to longer pulses of moderate temperature. The cyan layer is at the bottom, sensitive to long pulses of lower temperature. The layers are separated by thin interlayers, acting as heat insulation, moderating the heat throughou