Both are printers that create images by depositing liquid ink onto paper via a piezoelectric print head. The term ‘Deskjet’ is used my Hewlett Packard to describe their line of ink jet printers. ‘Inkjet printers’ is a generic term which can be applied to any liquid ink printer that uses piezoelectric printing mechanisms.
Piezoelectric printing mechanisms are comprised of tiny chambers made of quartz crystal, which has the unique quality of expanding when an electrical current is passed through it. The chambers are kept filled with ink via capillary action, and printing occurs when a current causes the ink to be pumped into a second chamber, then expelled as soon as the current is removed and the chamber returns to it’s original size. If you listen to an piezoelectric printer while it’s printing, you can just make out the high pitch noise of the ink ejecting from the print head at supersonic speeds.
There are other liquid printing systems, such as the electromagnetic deflection, continuous delivery printers from Indigo, but they are rare compared to inkjet devices. Canon uses electrochemical ink propulsion technology rater than piezoelectric technologies. Canon ‘Bubblejet’ printers essentially boil a tiny drop of ink suspended in a volatile solvent, causing a tiny burst of dye to strike the paper in the printer.
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