Printing with ferroelectric ceramics

For printing applications, ferroelectric (FE) material can be poled without electrodes by charging the surface at the image areas in one polarity and the background to the opposite polarity. On the surface of FE-ceramics, high electric fields are produced which are able to attract or repel charged toner particles. This property can be used for high speed electrographic printing. With a simplified model it can be shown, that a layer of selfconsistent screening charges are responsible for short range but intensive fields above the surface. Possible electric field measurement techniques, optimisation of material properties and contrast enhancement for FE-printing are also discussed.