CN109112488B

CN109112488B - Vapor deposition source and vapor deposition device

Info

Publication number: CN109112488B
Application number: CN201811230434.5A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 谢虎; 付潇; 郭书鹏; 黄俊淞
Original assignee: BOE Technology Group Co Ltd; Hefei Xinsheng Optoelectronics Technology Co Ltd
Current assignee: BOE Technology Group Co Ltd; Hefei Xinsheng Optoelectronics Technology Co Ltd
Priority date: 2018-10-22
Filing date: 2018-10-22
Publication date: 2023-08-01
Anticipated expiration: 2038-10-22
Also published as: CN109112488A

Abstract

The invention provides a vapor deposition source and a vapor deposition device, belongs to the technical field of vapor deposition, and can solve the problem that an existing crucible is difficult to take out from a vapor deposition accommodating chamber. The vapor deposition source of the present invention includes: the evaporation coating accommodating chamber is of a hollow structure; a vapor deposition body disposed within the hollow structure; the support component is arranged on the bottom surface of the hollow structure and is used for supporting the evaporation body so as to separate the bottom of the evaporation body from the bottom surface of the hollow structure.

Description

Vapor deposition source and vapor deposition device

Technical Field

The invention belongs to the technical field of vapor deposition, and particularly relates to a vapor deposition source and a vapor deposition device.

Background

An OLED (Organic Light Emitting Diode ) display is a self-luminous display, which does not require a backlight source compared to an LCD (Liquid Crystal Display ), and is thus lighter and thinner; in addition, the OLED display has advantages of high brightness, low power consumption, wide viewing angle, high response speed, wide use temperature range, etc., and is increasingly used in various high performance display fields.

At present, a vapor deposition material is often deposited on a glass substrate by a vacuum vapor deposition method, so as to form OLED devices with different colors in an OLED display. However, the inventors found that: as shown in fig. 1, there is a gap between the crucible 2 and the vapor deposition accommodating chamber 1, and during vapor deposition, a part of the vapor deposition material in a molten state flows back to the bottom of the crucible 2 through the gap, so that the bottom of the crucible 2 and the vapor deposition accommodating chamber 1 adhere to each other, and the difficulty of taking out the crucible 2 from the vapor deposition accommodating chamber 1 is increased. In contrast, in the prior art, the crucible 2 in the vapor deposition accommodating chamber 1 is often taken out by knocking the two ends of the vapor deposition accommodating chamber 1 to gradually loosen the bottom of the crucible 2 and the vapor deposition accommodating chamber 1, however, the taking-out method takes a long time, and the crucible 2 and the vapor deposition accommodating chamber 1 are extremely fragile.

Disclosure of Invention

The present invention aims to solve at least one of the problems of the prior art, and provides a vapor deposition source and a vapor deposition device capable of shortening the time for replacing a new crucible and vapor deposition material.

The technical scheme adopted for solving the technical problems of the invention is an evaporation source, comprising:

the evaporation coating accommodating chamber is of a hollow structure;

a vapor deposition body disposed within the hollow structure;

the support component is arranged on the bottom surface of the hollow structure and is used for supporting the evaporation body so as to separate the bottom of the evaporation body from the bottom surface of the hollow structure.

Preferably, the plurality of the support assemblies are uniformly arranged on the bottom surface of the hollow structure.

Preferably, the support assembly includes: a telescopic member, a first driving unit;

the evaporation body is positioned at one side of the telescopic part far away from the bottom surface of the hollow structure, and when the telescopic part is in an extending state, the telescopic part is used for supporting the evaporation body so as to separate the bottom of the evaporation body from the bottom surface of the hollow structure;

the first driving unit is connected with the telescopic component and used for driving the telescopic component to extend or retract.

Preferably, the method further comprises: and the conveying assembly is used for conveying the evaporation body from the surface of the telescopic part to the outside of the hollow structure.

Preferably, the transfer assembly includes: the gear, the rack and the second driving unit;

the rack is fixedly arranged at the bottom of the evaporation body, the gear is arranged at one side of the telescopic part, which is close to the bottom of the evaporation body, and the gear is meshed with the rack;

the second driving unit is connected with the gear and used for driving the gear to rotate so as to convey the evaporation body from the surface of the telescopic part to the outside of the hollow structure.

Preferably, the support assembly is multiplexed as a rolling assembly, and the evaporation source further comprises: a third driving unit;

the third driving unit is connected with the rolling assembly and is used for driving the rolling assembly to roll so as to convey the evaporation body supported by the rolling assembly to the outside of the hollow structure.

Preferably, the hollow structure includes a rectangular parallelepiped shape, and the vapor deposition body includes a rectangular parallelepiped shape.

Preferably, the evaporation body is a crucible.

Preferably, the vapor deposition source includes a line vapor deposition source.

The technical scheme adopted for solving the technical problem of the invention is an evaporation device which comprises the evaporation source.

Drawings

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of a conventional vapor deposition source;

fig. 2 is a schematic view of an evaporation source according to example 1 of the present invention;

FIG. 3 is one of the B-B' cross-sectional views of the vapor deposition source of example 1 of the present invention;

FIG. 4 is a second cross-sectional view of the vapor deposition source according to example 1 of the present invention;

wherein the reference numerals are as follows: 1. an evaporation receiving chamber; 2. a crucible; 3. a support assembly; 4. a rack; 5. a gear.

Detailed Description

The present invention will be described in further detail below with reference to the drawings and detailed description for the purpose of better understanding of the technical solution of the present invention to those skilled in the art.

Unless defined otherwise, technical or scientific terms used herein should be given the ordinary meaning as understood by one of ordinary skill in the art to which this invention belongs. The terms "first," "second," and the like, as used herein, do not denote any order, quantity, or importance, but rather are used to distinguish one element from another. The word "comprising" and the like means that elements or items preceding the word are included in the element or item listed after the word and equivalents thereof without precluding other elements or items. "left", "right", etc. are used only to indicate a relative positional relationship, and when the absolute position of the object to be described is changed, the relative positional relationship may be changed accordingly.

In the embodiment of the present invention, the vapor deposition body is taken as the crucible 2 as an example. Of course, the vapor deposition body is not limited to the crucible 2 described above, and is not limited thereto.

Example 1:

as shown in fig. 2, the present embodiment provides an evaporation source, including: a vapor deposition accommodating chamber 1, a crucible 2 and a supporting component 3; wherein, the inside of the vapor deposition accommodating chamber 1 is of a hollow structure; the crucible 2 is arranged in the hollow structure; the support assembly 3 is provided on the bottom surface of the hollow structure for supporting the crucible 2 to separate the bottom of the crucible 2 from the bottom surface of the hollow structure. Wherein, the hollow structure here means: the inside of the vapor deposition accommodating chamber 1 has a cavity structure, specifically, as shown in fig. 2, the cavity may be rectangular parallelepiped, and at this time, the crucible 2 is disposed in the cavity of the rectangular parallelepiped, that is, in the hollow structure of the present embodiment. Of course, the shape of the hollow structure (cavity) of the present embodiment is not limited to a rectangular parallelepiped, and is not limited herein.

Specifically, when the evaporation source provided in this embodiment is used to manufacture OLED devices having different colors in an OLED display, first, a crucible 2 filled with an evaporation material (e.g., an organic material and/or an inorganic material) is fed into an evaporation receiving chamber 1, and the bottom of the crucible 2 is in contact with a supporting member 3; then, the vapor deposition material is heated to a molten state, and the vapor deposition material in the molten state is vapor deposited on a glass substrate disposed opposite to the nozzle through the nozzle of the crucible 2, so that the vapor deposition material is deposited on the glass substrate to form OLED devices having different colors in the OLED display. When another OLED display needs to be prepared by adopting the evaporation source of this embodiment, only the crucible 2 supported by the support assembly 3 needs to be taken out from the evaporation accommodating chamber, a new crucible is placed on the surface of the support assembly 3 again, and evaporation is performed on the evaporation material in the new crucible according to the above steps, which is not described herein again.

It can be seen that in this embodiment, the bottom of the crucible 2 is in contact with the support member 3 only, and the contact area of the bottom of the crucible 2 with the support member 3 in this embodiment is smaller than that in the prior art in which the bottom of the crucible 2 is in contact with the entire bottom surface of the hollow structure. In this way, even if the molten vapor deposition material flows back to the bottom of the crucible 2 through the gap between the crucible 2 and the vapor deposition accommodating chamber 1, the molten vapor deposition material can adhere only a very small portion of the bottom surface of the crucible 2 to the support assembly 3, that is, the adhesive force applied to the bottom of the crucible 2 by the molten vapor deposition material is small, so that the difficulty in taking out the crucible 2 from the vapor deposition accommodating chamber 1 is reduced, and the time for replacing another crucible and vapor deposition material is saved.

In this embodiment, the number of the supporting members 3 is preferably plural, and the plurality of supporting members 3 are uniformly disposed on the bottom surface of the hollow structure. This kind of structure sets up and makes a plurality of supporting components 3 when supporting crucible 2, and a plurality of supporting components 3 can the atress even to strengthen the stability of crucible 2, improve the evaporation effect of the evaporation source that this embodiment provided.

Specifically, as shown in fig. 3, the vapor deposition source in this embodiment will be described below by taking an example in which the vapor deposition source includes 5 support members 3. Of course, the number of the supporting members 3 is not limited to 5, and is not limited herein.

Wherein, as a first preferred mode of the present embodiment, the support assembly 3 comprises: a telescopic member, a first driving unit; the crucible 2 is positioned on one side of the telescopic component far away from the bottom surface of the hollow structure, and is used for supporting the crucible 2 when the telescopic component is in an extended state so as to separate the bottom of the crucible 2 from the bottom surface of the hollow structure; the first driving unit is connected with the telescopic component and used for driving the telescopic component to extend or retract.

Specifically, when the crucible 2 needs to be taken out of the vapor deposition accommodating chamber 1, the first driving unit drives the telescopic component to be in an extending state, so that the bottom of the crucible 2 is separated from the bottom surface of the vapor deposition accommodating chamber 1, and the bottom of the crucible 2 is only in contact with the telescopic component, that is, the bottom surface of the crucible 2 is only bonded with the telescopic component by the molten vapor deposition material, so that the adhesive force of the molten vapor deposition material applied to the bottom of the crucible 2 is greatly reduced, and the difficulty of taking out the crucible 2 from the vapor deposition accommodating chamber 1 is further reduced. In addition, when the crucible 2 is taken out to replace another crucible, the first driving unit drives the telescopic member in a contracted state so as to place another crucible into the vapor deposition accommodating chamber 1.

In order to further shorten the time for taking out the crucible 2 from the vapor deposition accommodating chamber 1, it is preferable that the vapor deposition source in the present embodiment is further provided with a conveying means for conveying the crucible 2 from the surface of the telescopic member to the outside of the hollow structure, that is, the conveying means is capable of automatically taking out the crucible 2 from the vapor deposition accommodating chamber 1.

Specifically, as shown in fig. 4, the transfer assembly includes: a gear 5, a rack 4 and a second driving unit; the rack 4 is fixedly arranged at the bottom of the crucible 2, the gear 5 is arranged at one side of the telescopic component close to the bottom of the crucible 2, and the gear 5 is meshed with the rack 4; the second driving unit is connected to the gear 5 for driving the gear 5 to rotate to transfer the crucible 2 from the surface of the telescopic member to the outside of the hollow structure.

Assuming that the left side surface (i.e., the surface a shown in fig. 2) of the vapor deposition accommodating chamber 1 in the present embodiment is provided with an opening, the crucible 2 is put in or taken out through the opening at the time of replacing the crucible 2 in the vapor deposition accommodating chamber 1. Specifically, when the crucible 2 in the vapor deposition receiving chamber 1 needs to be taken out, the second driving unit drives the gear 5 to rotate in the counterclockwise direction, and at this time, the rack 4 engaged with the gear 5 moves linearly to the left along with the gear 5, thereby transferring the crucible 2 from the surface of the telescopic member to the outside of the hollow structure. Of course, when the crucible 2 is taken out to replace another crucible, the second driving unit may also drive the gear 5 to move clockwise, and at this time, since the bottom of the other crucible is also provided with the rack 4 meshed with the gear 5, when the gear 5 moves clockwise, the other crucible will move rightward along with the rack 4 at the bottom thereof, so as to transfer the other crucible from the outside of the vapor deposition accommodating chamber 1 to the surface of the telescopic member, that is, the step of placing the other crucible in the vapor deposition accommodating chamber 1 is completed. Obviously, in the process of replacing another crucible in the vapor deposition accommodating chamber 1, the transmission is carried out by virtue of the rack 4 structure of the gear 5, and the assembly and the disassembly are not needed manually, so that the time of replacing the other crucible in the vapor deposition accommodating chamber 1 is greatly shortened, and the utilization rate of the vapor deposition source in the embodiment is improved.

As a second preferred mode of the present embodiment, the vapor deposition source in the present embodiment still includes the vapor deposition accommodating chamber 1, the crucible 2 placed in the hollow structure of the vapor deposition accommodating chamber 1, and the support member 3, in particular, the support member 3 is multiplexed into a rolling member, that is, the support member 3 in the present embodiment has not only the function of supporting the crucible 2 but also the function of rolling itself. Moreover, the vapor deposition source of the present embodiment further includes: and the third driving unit is connected with the rolling assembly and is used for driving the rolling assembly to roll so that the rolling assembly automatically conveys the crucible 2 supported by the rolling assembly to the outside of the hollow structure.

It is assumed that the left side surface (i.e., the surface a shown in fig. 2) of the vapor deposition accommodating chamber 1 in the present embodiment is provided with an opening through which the crucible 2 is put in or taken out when the crucible 2 in the vapor deposition accommodating chamber 1 is replaced.

Specifically, when the third driving unit drives the rolling assembly to rotate in the counterclockwise direction, the crucible 2 supported by the rolling assembly will follow it to move straight to the left, thereby transferring the crucible 2 from the surface of the rolling assembly to the outside of the hollow structure. Of course, when the crucible 2 is taken out to replace another crucible, the third driving unit may also drive the rolling assembly to move in the clockwise direction, thereby transferring the other crucible from the outside of the vapor deposition accommodating chamber 1 to the surface of the telescopic member. That is, in the present embodiment, the rolling assembly has not only the function of supporting the crucible 2 to separate the bottom of the crucible 2 from the bottom surface of the hollow structure, but also the function of automatically transferring the crucible 2 supported thereby to the outside of the vapor deposition receiving chamber 1.

It should be noted that the rolling assembly in this embodiment should have a certain height to separate the bottom of the crucible 2 from the bottom surface of the hollow structure; moreover, the evaporation source of the present embodiment includes a plurality of rolling members uniformly distributed on the bottom surface of the hollow structure for rotating under the driving of the third driving unit to convey the crucible 2 supported thereby to the outside of the hollow structure.

Among them, the hollow structure of the present embodiment preferably has a rectangular parallelepiped shape, and the crucible 2 has a rectangular parallelepiped shape. Of course, the shape of the hollow structure and the shape of the crucible 2 are not limited to the rectangular parallelepiped described above, and may be other shapes.

It should be noted that, the shape of the crucible 2 is preferably consistent with the shape of the hollow structure, that is, if the hollow structure is a cuboid, the shape of the crucible 2 is also a cuboid, and the arrangement of the structure can ensure that the crucible 2 can be completely placed in the hollow structure, and can reduce the gap between the crucible 2 and the hollow structure, thereby reducing the molten vapor deposition material flowing back to the bottom of the crucible 2 and the bottom surface of the hollow structure through the gap, and further shortening the time for replacing another crucible and vapor deposition material.

In this embodiment, the vapor deposition source preferably includes a line vapor deposition source. Of course, the vapor deposition source may be a point vapor deposition source or a surface vapor deposition source, which will not be described herein.

In summary, in the present embodiment, since the bottom surface of the vapor deposition accommodating chamber 1 is provided with the support assembly 3, the support assembly 3 is used for supporting the crucible 2 to separate the bottom of the crucible 2 from the bottom surface of the hollow structure, it is obvious that the bottom of the crucible 2 is only in contact with the support assembly 3, and the contact area between the bottom of the crucible 2 and the support assembly 3 in the present embodiment is smaller than that in the prior art, in which the bottom of the crucible 2 is in contact with the entire bottom surface of the hollow structure. In this way, even if the molten vapor deposition material flows back to the bottom of the crucible 2, that is, the molten vapor deposition material solidifies between the bottom of the crucible 2 and the support member 3, the difficulty in taking out the crucible 2 of the present embodiment from the vapor deposition accommodating chamber 1 is reduced due to the small contact area between the two, that is, the small adhesion force applied to the bottom of the crucible 2 by the molten vapor deposition material. In addition, the vapor deposition source of this embodiment is further provided with a gear 5 and rack 4 structure, and the crucible 2 can drive the rack 4 to do linear motion through rotating the gear 5, that is, drive the crucible 2 fixedly connected with the rack 4 to do linear motion, so as to achieve the purpose of automatically taking out the crucible 2 from the vapor deposition accommodating chamber 1, thereby shortening the time for taking out the crucible 2, that is, saving the time for replacing another crucible and vapor deposition material, and improving the utilization rate of the vapor deposition source provided by this embodiment.

Example 2:

the embodiment provides a vapor deposition device, which includes the vapor deposition source provided in embodiment 1, so that the vapor deposition device has a better vapor deposition effect and a higher utilization rate.

It is to be understood that the above embodiments are merely illustrative of the application of the principles of the present invention, but not in limitation thereof. Various modifications and improvements may be made by those skilled in the art without departing from the spirit and substance of the invention, and are also considered to be within the scope of the invention.

Claims

1. An evaporation source, comprising:

the evaporation coating accommodating chamber is of a hollow structure;

a vapor deposition body disposed within the hollow structure;

the support component is arranged on the bottom surface of the hollow structure and is used for supporting the evaporation body so as to separate the bottom of the evaporation body from the bottom surface of the hollow structure;

the support component is multiplexing as rolling component, the evaporation source still includes: a third driving unit;

2. The vapor deposition source of claim 1, wherein the plurality of support members is provided in plurality, and the plurality of support members is uniformly disposed on the bottom surface of the hollow structure.

3. The vapor deposition source according to claim 1, wherein the hollow structure has a shape including a rectangular parallelepiped, and the vapor deposition body has a shape including a rectangular parallelepiped.

4. The evaporation source according to claim 1, wherein the evaporation body is a crucible.

5. The evaporation source of claim 1, wherein the evaporation source comprises a line evaporation source.

6. An evaporation device comprising the evaporation source according to any one of claims 1 to 5.