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The purpose of this paper is to investigate how supply and demand interact during industrial emergence.

The paper builds on previous theorising about co-evolutionary dynamics, exploring the interaction between supply and demand in a study of the industrial emergence of the commercial inkjet cluster in Cambridge, UK. Data are collected through 13 interviews with professionals working in the industry.

The paper shows that as new industries emerge, asynchronies between technology supply and market demand create opportunities for entrepreneurial activity. In attempting to match innovative technologies to particular applications, entrepreneurs adapt to the system conditions and shape the environment to their own advantage. Firms that successfully operate in emerging industries demonstrate the functionality of new technologies, reducing uncertainty and increasing customer receptiveness.

The research is geographically bounded to the Cambridge commercial inkjet cluster. Further studies could consider commercial inkjet from a global perspective or test the applicability of the findings in other industries.

Technology-based firms are often innovating during periods of industrial emergence. The insights developed in this paper help such firms recognise the emerging context in which they operate and the challenges that need to overcome.

As an in depth study of a single industry, this research responds to calls for studies into industrial emergence, providing insights into how supply and demand interact during this phase of the industry lifecycle.

This paper describes a method for patterning fine line interconnections over non‐planar surfaces and introduces the idea of using holographic masks for more challenging geometries.

A photolithographic method for achieving grossly non‐planar interconnects is described. The patterning of electrical interconnections onto the piezo‐electric actuators of an ink‐jet print head is used as an example. Uniform coverage of the substrate is achieved using an electro‐depositable photoresist. The required pattern is transferred via a custom‐designed chrome‐on‐glass mask using a standard mask aligner.

Large arrays of 100 μm‐pitch electrical interconnections were successfully deposited onto 500 μm‐high high piezo‐electric actuators. It was necessary to modify the shapes of the line segments on the mask in order to compensate for diffractive line broadening. For more extreme 3D geometries it becomes necessary to consider the use of holographic masks.

Printed circuit boards and semiconductor wafers are nominally flat and traditional lithographic processes have been developed accordingly. However, future microelectronic packaging schemes and microsystems may require patterning to be achieved on grossly non‐planar surfaces. We have demonstrated that this can be achieved on ink‐jet print heads using photolithography and point to the research necessary to enable it to be realised on more extreme non‐planar substrates.

The purpose of this paper is to present the findings on jet array instabilities of molten caprolactam. Initial investigations showed that although a suitable range of parameters was found for stable jetting, there were cases where instabilities occurred due to external sources such as contamination.

The inkjet system consisted of a melt supply unit, filtration unit and printhead with pneumatic and thermal control. A start‐up strategy was developed to initiate the jetting trials. A digital microscope camera monitored the printhead nozzle plate to record the jet array stability within the recommended range of parameters from earlier research. The trials with jet instabilities were studied to analyse the instability behaviour.

It was found that instabilities occurred in three forms which were jet trajectory error, single jet failure and jet array failure. Occasionally, the jet with incorrect trajectory remained stable. When a jet failed, bleeding of melt from the nozzle due to the actuations influenced the adjacent jets initiating an array of jets to fail similar to falling dominos.

The research concept is novel and investigating the jet array instability behaviours could give an understanding on jetting reliability issues.