KR20070105595A - Evaporation apparatus - Google Patents

Abstract

An organic thin film deposition apparatus is provided to control deposition rate by adjusting distance between point deposition sources placed with a linear shape by moving a substrate horizontally through a moving unit. An organic thin film deposition apparatus comprises a deposition chamber(2), and a deposition source assembly(10). An organic thin film is formed on a substrate(S). The deposition source assembly has a plurality of point deposition sources to be separated and linearly arranged. The distance between the point deposition sources is smaller from the center to the outside. The deposition source assembly is placed to cross a point deposition source of evaporating a host and a point deposition source of evaporating the dopant. A shield(20) is provided with a slit(21) for controlling a splashed shape of the organic compound. A movable unit moves the substrate horizontally.

Description

Organic thin film deposition apparatus {EVAPORATION APPARATUS}

1 shows a conventional organic thin film deposition apparatus.

2 is a schematic diagram illustrating a conventional organic thin film deposition process.

Figure 3 shows an organic thin film deposition apparatus according to the present invention.

4 is a schematic view illustrating an organic thin film deposition process according to the present invention.

5 to 7 show various embodiments of the deposition source assembly according to the present invention.

** Description of the symbols for the main parts of the drawings **

1: vapor deposition apparatus 2: chamber

10: deposition source assembly 20: shield

21: slit

The present invention relates to an organic thin film deposition apparatus, and more particularly, to an organic thin film deposition apparatus capable of controlling the deposition rate by adjusting the separation distance between a plurality of point deposition sources arranged in a linear manner.

Recently, with the rapid development of information and communication technology and the expansion of the market, flat panel displays have been in the spotlight as display devices. Such flat panel displays include liquid crystal displays, plasma display panels, organic light emitting diodes, and the like.

Among them, the organic light emitting device has very good advantages such as fast response speed, lower power consumption than conventional liquid crystal display, light weight, ultra thin without needing a back light device, and high brightness. As a result, it is attracting attention as a next generation display device.

In the organic light emitting device, an anode film, an organic thin film, and a cathode film are sequentially coated on a substrate, and a suitable energy difference is formed in the organic film by emitting a voltage between the anode and the cathode, thereby emitting light by itself. That is, the excitation energy left by recombination of injected electrons and holes is generated as light. In this case, since the wavelength of light generated according to the amount of the dopant of the organic material may be adjusted, full color may be realized.

Although the detailed structure of the organic light emitting diode is not shown in the drawing, an anode, a hole injection layer, a hole transport layer, an emission layer, and an electron transport layer are deposited on a substrate. A layer, an electron injection layer, and a cathode are stacked in this order. In this case, ITO (Indium Tin Oxide) having a small sheet resistance and good permeability is mainly used as the anode. And an organic thin film is composed of a hole injection layer, a hole transport layer, light emitting layer, an electron transport layer, the electron injection layer, the multi-layer to increase the light emitting efficiency, an organic material used for the light emitting layer is Alq _3, TPD, PBD, m-MTDATA, TCTA. In addition, a LiF-Al metal film is used as the cathode. In addition, since the organic thin film is very weak to moisture and oxygen in the air, an encapsulation film is formed on the top to increase the life time of the device.

Meanwhile, organic thin film formation methods developed to date include vacuum deposition method, sputtering method, ion-beam deposition method, pulsed-laser deposition method, molecular beam deposition method, chemical vapor deposition method, and spin coater ( spin coater). Among these, currently commercially available technology is vacuum deposition.

Here, the vacuum evaporation method is to vaporize or sublime the surroundings of the crucible containing the organic material to vaporize or sublime to deposit the organic matter in the vapor (gas) state on the substrate located above the crucible.

A conventional organic thin film deposition apparatus will be described with reference to FIGS. 1 and 2. As shown, the substrate S is carried and supported in the deposition chamber 100 in which the deposition source 110 is installed. The deposition source 110 is a linear deposition source, which is formed to accommodate an organic material in a linear body having an opening 111 formed thereon, and a heater (not shown) capable of heating and evaporating it is provided. It is included.

After carrying in and supporting the substrate S in the deposition chamber 100, the organic material is evaporated to form an organic thin film having a predetermined thickness.

On the other hand, in forming the organic thin film, an important factor is the uniformity of the thin film. In particular, the phenomenon that the central portion of the substrate is deposited more than the edge occurs.

In order to improve this, the uniformity of the thin film was improved by appropriately adjusting the shape of the opening of the linear deposition source. That is, as shown, the center of the opening is formed smaller than both ends. However, adjusting the shape of these openings was a very difficult task obtained through a number of experiments.

The present invention has been made to solve the above problems, an object of the present invention is to provide an organic thin film deposition apparatus that can control the deposition rate by adjusting the separation distance between a plurality of linear deposition sources arranged in a linear manner. Is in.

In order to solve the above technical problem, a deposition apparatus for forming an organic thin film on a substrate according to the present invention comprises a deposition chamber; And a deposition source assembly in which a plurality of point evaporation sources are linearly spaced apart from each other.

In addition, the deposition source assembly may be arranged so that the deposition source is arranged in one row, the deposition source for evaporating the host and the deposition source for evaporating the dopant intersect.

Alternatively, the evaporation sources may be arranged in two or more rows, such that heat for evaporating the host and heat for evaporating the dopant may be intersected.

In addition, the upper side of the evaporation source assembly is preferably provided with a shield (shield) formed with a slit for controlling the scattering form of the evaporated organic matter.

In addition, it is preferable that the movement means for horizontally moving the substrate is further provided.

Hereinafter, with reference to the accompanying drawings will be described in detail the configuration and operation of the embodiment according to the present invention.

3 and 4, the deposition apparatus 1 of the present embodiment includes a chamber 2 and a deposition source assembly 10 installed inside the chamber 2.

The deposition source assembly 10 is arranged in a plurality of the evaporation source linearly, in particular to properly adjust the separation distance between the evaporation sources.

In addition, a shield 20 is further provided in a space between the substrate S and the deposition source assembly 10. The shield 20 is for controlling the scattering of the evaporated organic material, and the slit 21 is formed to allow the organic material to pass therethrough.

In addition, the substrate transfer means (not shown) is further provided to move the substrate (S) in the horizontal direction during the deposition process to scan. The substrate transfer means is applicable to known means.

Referring to FIG. 5, the deposition source assembly 10 will be described in more detail. The distances between the deposition sources are arranged to be smaller from the center to the outside (d ₁ = d ₂ > d ₃ = d). ₄ > d ₅ = d ₆ ). This is to prevent more deposition on the central portion of the substrate S, as described above.

In addition, the plurality of point evaporation sources may be disposed so as to cross the point evaporation source for evaporating the host and the evaporation source for evaporating the dopant to simultaneously deposit different materials.

In addition, as shown in FIG. 6, a plurality of deposition deposition sources may be arranged in two rows. At this time, the first column may be arranged as the evaporation sources 11 for evaporating the host, and the second column may be arranged as the evaporation sources 12 for evaporating the dopant.

Referring to FIG. 7, the deposition source assembly 10 may be arranged in a linear manner, but may be configured in three rows. In this case, rows 1 and 3 are the evaporation sources 11 for evaporating the host, and rows 2 are the evaporation sources 12 for evaporating the dopant. In particular, each point deposition source is arranged in a zigzag shape. In contrast, rows 1 and 3 may be evaporation sources that evaporate the dopant, and columns 2 may be evaporation sources that evaporate the host.

The operation of the present invention will be described with reference to this.

As shown, by arranging the point evaporator linearly, the action similar to the linear evaporation source can be achieved. Moreover, the deposition rate can be controlled by adjusting the separation distance of the evaporation sources. As such, adjusting the separation distance of the point deposition sources to control the deposition rate is much easier than adjusting the opening shape of the linear deposition source for the same purpose.

According to the present invention, by controlling the separation distance between the plurality of point deposition sources, there is an effect that the control of the deposition rate is very easy.

Claims (5)

In the vapor deposition apparatus for forming an organic thin film on a substrate, Deposition chamber; And It comprises a; a plurality of deposition source assembly is arranged linearly spaced apart from each other; An organic thin film deposition apparatus, characterized in that the separation distance between the evaporation source is arranged to be smaller from the center toward the outside. The method of claim 1, The deposition source assembly, Wherein the evaporation source is arranged in one row, the organic thin film deposition apparatus, characterized in that the evaporation of the evaporation host and the evaporation source, the evaporation dopant is arranged so as to intersect. The method of claim 1, The deposition source assembly, The deposition source is disposed in two or more rows, the organic thin film deposition apparatus, characterized in that arranged to cross the heat to evaporate the host, the heat to evaporate the dopant. The method of claim 1, Above the deposition source assembly is an organic thin film deposition apparatus further comprises a shield (shield) formed with a slit for controlling the scattering form of the evaporated organic material. The method of claim 1, The organic thin film deposition apparatus further comprises a moving means for horizontally moving the substrate.

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