1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a liquid ejecting head such as an ink-jet recording head that ejects, utilizing a pressure change, liquid drops from nozzle openings. In addition, the invention relates to a liquid ejecting apparatus that is provided with such a liquid ejecting head.
2. Related Art
A liquid ejecting apparatus is provided with a liquid ejecting head that can eject liquid. Having such a liquid ejecting head, a liquid ejecting apparatus is capable of ejecting various kinds of liquid. An example of a liquid ejecting apparatus is an image recording apparatus such as an ink-jet printer. An ink-jet printer is provided with an ink-jet recording head, which is an example of various kinds of a liquid ejecting head. An ink-jet printer performs recording by ejecting ink in the form of ink drops from nozzles of the ink-jet recording head toward a recording target medium such as a sheet of printing paper or the like. As a result of the landing of the discharged ink drops onto the surface of the liquid-ejecting target object, dots are formed thereon. In this way, the ink-jet printer records an image and the like on the recording target medium. The ink-jet recording head may be hereinafter simply referred to as a “recording head”. These days, the application of such a liquid ejecting apparatus is not limited to an image recording apparatus mentioned above; for example, a liquid ejecting apparatus is used as, among many other types of manufacturing apparatuses, a manufacturing apparatus used for production of a color filter for a liquid crystal display device.
The following is an example of the structure of the recording head. An elastic plate seals pressure generation chambers, which are hollow compartments. The frond ends of pressure generation elements are fixed to the elastic plate. A rear part of each pressure generation element is fixed to a surface of a fixation plate, which is fixed to a head case. The pressure generation element vibrates in the direction of the length of the pressure generation element to cause a pressure change inside the pressure generation chamber. Due to the pressure change, liquid retained in the pressure generation chamber is discharged in the form of a liquid drop from a nozzle opening (i.e., nozzle hole or nozzle orifice), which is in communication with the pressure generation chamber. An example of the structure explained above is disclosed in, for example, Japanese Patent No. 3879297.
There is a demand for reducing the size of a liquid ejecting head without sacrificing discharging performance. A structure in which a fixation plate is provided for each nozzle line for fixation to a head case has many disadvantages in reducing the size of a liquid ejecting head. In addition, wiring, etc., is more complex.