Method of fabricating printhead to have aligned nozzle guard

1. A method of fabricating a printhead that includes a substrate, a plurality of nozzles positioned on the substrate and a nozzle guard that is mounted on the substrate to cover the nozzles, the nozzle guard defining a plurality of apertures that are aligned with respective nozzles so that ink ejected from the nozzles can pass through the apertures and onto a print medium, the method including the steps of:

depositing sacrificial material on the substrate having the nozzles positioned thereon so that a first portion of the sacrificial material encases the nozzles;

positioning the nozzle guard on the substrate so as to contact a second portion of the sacrificial material not encasing the nozzles; and subsequently

removing the first portion of the sacrificial material.

2. A method as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the sacrificial material is a polyimide.

3. A method as claimed in claim 2 , wherein the positioning step includes contacting the nozzle guard and the second portion of the polyimide sacrificial material via an inorganic seal.

4. A method as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the positioning step includes positioning support struts of the nozzle guard on alignment formations extending from the substrate formed by the second portion of the sacrificial material.

5. A method as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the removing step includes carrying out a plasma etching process through at least one of the apertures of the nozzle guard.

6. A method as claimed in claim 4 , wherein the plasma etching process is an oxygen plasma etch.