In inkjet printing, a nozzle technology is used to dispense miniscule droplets of liquid ink over every inch of paper.  The smaller the drops are, the more accurate and vivid the final print will be.  Much like pixels of a digital camera, the higher the number, the better the color quality will be.  For printing with ink, the resolution of prints is measured by DPI, or dots per inch.  The size of the dots is measured in picoliters, which is a measurement so small it is unseen to most human beings.  This microscopic dot of ink is typically written pL, but pl is also widely accepted.

A picoliter is a subdivision of a standard liter.  It is estimate to be approximately one trillionth the size of a liter.  A liter is one cubic decimeter and a kiloliter is the same size of a cubic meter.  So, a picoliter is equal to 1,000 cubic micrometers, which are each one millionth of a meter.  Just one cubic micrometer has is equivalent to a single femtoliter, which is one quadrillionth of a standard liter.  To put this in a perspective that may be easier to understand, an average raindrop would be equal to hundreds of thousands of picoliters. 

There are two nozzle technologies that are used in inkjet printers.  One relies on heat, while the other uses vibrations.  The thermal method heats ink drops until they become vapor.  Once the vapor bubble pops, the vacuum effect pulls more ink into the print head, which is then distributed through the tip of the nozzle.  Piezoelectric technology uses crystals that can receive electric charges, causing them to vibrate and force small drops of ink out.  Even though there are two different methods used, both rely on the picoliter size dots to create a quality that is worthy of personal pictures and professional documents.

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