JP2006184806A - Liquid crystal tray used for liquid crystal injection device - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a liquid crystal tray capable of enhancing use efficiency of high-cost liquid crystal material by avoiding a liquid exhaustion state in the degassing process. <P>SOLUTION: In the inner surface of a groove part 10D for storing a liquid crystal 20 reserved by the liquid crystal tray 10, side surfaces and the bottom surface except for the periphery 10E outside groove are treated and a water-repellency reducing treatment part 11 in which the hydrophilicity is improved is formed. Thereby, the fluidity of the liquid crystal 20 in the groove part 10D is made smooth and formation of a space by air bubbles in the liquid crystal 20 is suppressed. When the liquid crystal 20 is stored in the liquid crystal tray 10, the upper surface of the liquid crystal tray 10 is formed of an upper face 10U and the periphery 10E outside groove and the water-repellency reducing treatment part 11 is not present. Consequently, the liquid crystal 20 can satisfactorily rise from the upper surface of the liquid crystal tray 10. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2006,JPO&NCIPI

Description

  The present invention relates to a liquid crystal dish that is used in a liquid crystal injection apparatus and stores liquid crystal for injection when liquid crystal is injected into a liquid crystal panel.

  An example of a liquid crystal dish used in a conventional liquid crystal injection apparatus is disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 9-54327 as Patent Document 1.

  For example, as shown in FIG. 7, the liquid crystal dish 110 is used as a container for storing the liquid crystal 20 in the liquid crystal injection apparatus. In Patent Document 1, the liquid crystal dish 110 is made of a liquid repellent material. Usually, the liquid crystal dish 110 uses polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), which is known as a substance having the smallest friction coefficient, that is, commonly known as Teflon (registered trademark). Accordingly, the liquid crystal dish 110 swells the liquid crystal 20 from the upper surface of the liquid crystal dish 110 by taking advantage of the water repellency of the liquid repellant material and the surface tension of the liquid crystal 20 in contact with the liquid repellant material. The liquid crystal 20 is injected into the panel 31 from the injection port 33 and filled.

  Here, the injection method will be briefly described with reference to FIGS.

  In the procedure, first, in the chamber 30 in a vacuum state, the liquid crystal dish 110 having the liquid crystal 20 rising from the upper surface is raised in the direction of the panel 31 using the elevating mechanism 32, and as shown in FIGS. Thus, the liquid crystal dish 110 and the panel 31 are brought into contact with each other. Due to the contact, a small amount of liquid crystal 20 is drawn into the panel 31 from the inlet 33 by capillary action. Thereafter, the liquid crystal 20 is sequentially drawn into the inside of the panel 31 and fills the inside of the panel 31 by utilizing the effect of the differential pressure and the capillary phenomenon while returning to the atmospheric pressure.

  The conventional liquid crystal dish 110 has liquid repellency on all surfaces including the groove for storing the liquid crystal 20 in the liquid crystal dish 110. Therefore, the liquid crystal dish 110 made of a liquid repellent material has a strong water repellency so that the liquid crystal 20 filled in the groove is raised from the upper surface. In addition, the liquid crystal 20 of the liquid crystal dish 110 requires a defoaming step of extracting gas mixed therein before coming into contact with the panel 31.

  However, when the gas contained in the liquid crystal 20 goes out to the space outside the liquid crystal 20 due to the defoaming step, the viscosity of the liquid crystal 20 is high, so that the gas grows large and easily forms bubbles. Since the bubbles are difficult to flip, they merge with other bubbles and grow into larger bubbles. In the defoaming step, defoaming is performed by repeatedly blowing the bubbles and eliminating the gas in the liquid crystal 20, but at the moment when the bubbles bounce, as shown in FIG. Is generated. In particular, since the entire inner surface of the groove has water repellency, the liquid crystal 20 in the groove tends to maintain the generated space 21 by its own surface tension. The occurrence of such a space 21 without the liquid crystal 20 is referred to as “running out of liquid”. The inner surface of the groove of the liquid crystal dish 110 has water repellency, which makes it difficult for the liquid crystal 20 to spread, and the liquid is left out even after the defoaming process is finished.

  In this state, as shown in FIG. 11, when the panel 31 and the liquid crystal dish 110 are in contact with each other, the panels 31 </ b> A and 31 </ b> B that are in contact with the liquid-empty spaces 21 </ b> A and 21 </ b> B are not supplied with the necessary and sufficient liquid crystal 20. Or, since the injection port is not blocked by the liquid crystal 20, when the chamber 30 is returned to the atmosphere, gas is mixed into the panel to cause injection failure.

  Conventionally, in order to avoid such a state of running out of liquid, liquid crystal is additionally filled in the liquid running out portion after defoaming, or more liquid crystal than necessary is previously filled. This measure leads to an increase in the work process, or the use efficiency of the liquid crystal is lowered because of the extra liquid crystal filling. As a result, the cost increases.

  As one of the improvement measures, for example, as disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2002-244142 of Patent Document 2, a liquid crystal dish that increases the use efficiency of an expensive liquid crystal material and enables high-precision supply of the liquid crystal material. There is. This liquid crystal dish has an injecting groove for injecting an appropriate amount of liquid crystal by tilting on the inclined surface, and the injecting groove is formed of a material having good wettability to the liquid crystal material and the other wall surface is covered with a water repellent film. Yes. Therefore, when the liquid crystal is poured from one end, the bottom surface is made of a material having good wettability, so that an appropriate amount of liquid crystal can be poured into the injection groove with good fluidity.

  However, this configuration requires complex and simplified structure and control.

JP-A-9-54327 JP 2002-244142 A

  The problem to be solved is that the use efficiency of the expensive liquid crystal material cannot be increased because it is not possible to avoid the liquid running out state in the defoaming step.

  The present invention relates to a liquid crystal dish that is used in a liquid crystal injecting apparatus that injects liquid crystal into a liquid crystal display panel and has water repellency on the surface.

  In order to avoid running out of liquid in the defoaming step, the present invention performs a water repellency reduction process on the inner surface of the groove portion for storing the liquid crystal in the liquid crystal dish and the side surface and the bottom surface leaving the outer periphery of the groove to improve the hydrophilicity. Is the main feature.

  That is, the inner surface of the groove is made hydrophilic, so that the liquid crystal itself shows a spread by reducing the surface tension on the inner surface of the groove. Therefore, the space generated when bubbles generated in the liquid crystal are repelled is eliminated by the expansion of the liquid crystal.

  The water repellency reducing treatment includes, for example, corona discharge treatment, blast treatment, polishing treatment, or the like, or treatment for imparting unevenness, straight stripes, circular stripes, or the like to the groove surface.

  Further, when the liquid crystal dish has a coating of a water repellent material on the surface of the base metal, the water repellency reduction treatment may leave the coating on the surface of the base metal or generate a new coating so as not to expose the base metal. Is desirable.

  The liquid crystal dish used in the liquid crystal injection device of the present invention is a groove portion for storing liquid crystal, and the side and bottom surfaces that leave the outer periphery of the groove are subjected to water repellency reduction treatment. As a result, it is possible to increase the use efficiency of the liquid crystal and to avoid an inadequate injection by avoiding a liquid running out state.

  The purpose of avoiding the generation of space inside the stored liquid crystal is to provide water repellency reduction treatment to the side and bottom surfaces of the groove that stores liquid crystal in the liquid crystal dish made of water repellent material, leaving the outer periphery of the groove. This was achieved without compromising the simple structure of the liquid crystal injection device.

  The water repellent material is a substance having a small friction coefficient, and Teflon (registered trademark) is a substance having the smallest friction coefficient that has been discovered so far. Teflon (registered trademark) has a trade name of polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), which is a fluororesin, and is now generally called a fluororesin. Therefore, it goes without saying that other fluororesins are also used. Moreover, although water repellency is somewhat inferior, polypropylene other than fluororesin is also used.

  Hereinafter, embodiments will be described with reference to the drawings. The drawings are schematically exaggerated for easy understanding of the invention, and the relative dimensions of the configuration are different from the actual ones.

  A first embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to FIG.

  FIG. 1 is an explanatory view showing a cross section of Example 1 of a liquid crystal dish used in a liquid crystal injection apparatus according to the present invention.

  The liquid crystal dish 10 shown in FIG. 1 has a rectangular parallelepiped shape, and the material thereof is a water-repellent material Teflon (registered trademark). The liquid crystal dish 10 has a grooving groove 10D on its upper surface. The groove 10D is rectangular and has a space without a lid. The groove outer peripheral edge 10E that forms the upper surface opening portion of the groove 10D is Teflon (registered trademark) together with the upper surface 10U of the liquid crystal dish 10.

  However, as shown in the figure, the groove portion 10D has the side and bottom surfaces excluding the groove outer peripheral edge 10E formed in the water repellency reduction treatment portion 11 by improving the hydrophilicity by, for example, corona discharge treatment. Corona discharge treatment is used for surface modification of molded articles in many fields.

  FIG. 2 is a cross-sectional explanatory diagram when the liquid crystal 20 is stored in the groove 10D of the liquid crystal dish 10 of FIG. Since the entire surface of the upper surface 10U of the liquid crystal dish 10 and the outer peripheral edge 10E of the groove 10D is water-repellent, the liquid crystal 20 is sufficiently raised upward.

  FIGS. 3 to 5 are diagrams showing a liquid crystal injection device using the liquid crystal dish 10 according to the present invention in comparison with a conventional one for easy understanding.

  FIG. 3 shows a liquid crystal display panel 31 having an inlet 33 in a chamber 30 in a vacuum state, and an elevating mechanism 32 having a liquid crystal dish 10 storing the liquid crystal 20 on the upper surface. As shown in the drawing, Teflon (registered trademark) is used for the liquid crystal dish 10 used as a container for storing the liquid crystal 20 in the liquid crystal injection device. Therefore, taking advantage of the water repellency of the liquid repellent material and the property of increasing the surface tension of the liquid crystal 20 in contact with the liquid repellent material, the liquid crystal dish 10 can change the liquid crystal 20 from its own water repellency and the surface tension of the liquid crystal. The liquid crystal dish 10 is raised from the upper surface.

  In this state, even if the defoaming step is performed, the water repellency reduction processing portion 11 of the wall surface is hydrophilic inside the groove portion 10D of the liquid crystal dish 10, so that no space is generated inside the liquid crystal 20 as described above.

  In FIG. 4, the liquid crystal dish 10 having the liquid crystal 20 raised from the upper surface is moved in the direction of the panel 31 by being lifted by using the lifting mechanism 32 in the vacuum chamber 30 from the state of FIG. 3. The upper surface of 10 and the lower surface of the panel 31 are brought into contact with each other by placing the inlet 33 at the center of the groove 10D (FIG. 1). By the contact, a capillary phenomenon is obtained and a small amount of liquid crystal 20 is drawn into the panel 31 from the injection port 33. In this state, since no space is formed in the liquid crystal 20, there is no poor injection of the liquid crystal 20 such that gas is mixed into the panel 31. Thereafter, the liquid crystal 20 is successively drawn into the inside of the panel 31 by using the effect of the differential pressure and the capillary phenomenon while returning to the atmospheric pressure, and the inside of each panel 31 is filled.

  FIG. 5 is an explanatory side view of a plurality of panels 31 viewed from the side with respect to a sectional explanatory view viewed from the front of FIG. 4.

  Since such a configuration is adopted, the liquid crystal 20 can be filled into the panel 31 without seeing the growth of bubbles and the generation of spaces in the liquid crystal 20 in the groove portion 10D of the liquid crystal dish 10 during this operation. Therefore, it is possible to avoid a liquid running out state during liquid crystal injection. This can further increase the utilization efficiency of expensive liquid crystal materials.

  In the above description, Teflon (registered trademark) processing for improving hydrophilicity is performed on the groove wall surface as a water repellency reducing process. However, unevenness generation on the groove surface by blasting or polishing may be used. The generation of the unevenness includes a process of giving a straight line, a circular line, and the like.

  A second embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to FIG.

  In Example 2 of FIG. 6, the liquid crystal dish 10 has a surface of the base metal 12 coated with Teflon (registered trademark) 10 </ b> A. As the base metal 12, aluminum, stainless steel (SUS), or the like is usually used. Since the liquid crystal causes contamination due to contact with the metal, the above-described water repellency reduction treatment needs to be performed so that the base metal 12 is not exposed at least on the surface touched by the liquid crystal, for example, the surface other than the outer bottom surface. There is sex.

  For this reason, the liquid crystal dish has a coating of a water repellent material on the surface of the base metal. For example, when the surface of the base metal is subjected to a water repellency reduction process by generating irregularities on the groove surface, such as blasting or polishing, for example, A treatment that does not expose the underlying metal such as leaving a coating with an aqueous material is applied. Alternatively, the surface subjected to the water repellency reduction treatment is newly coated by a water repellency reduction treatment such as corona discharge that does not expose the underlying metal.

  Other components are the same as those shown in FIG.

  Adopting such a configuration greatly helps the durability of the liquid crystal dish.

  The groove on the upper surface of the liquid crystal dish made of water repellent material has a water repellency reduction treatment on the side and bottom surfaces that leave the outer periphery of the groove, and the growth of bubbles inside the stored liquid crystal can be easily suppressed. Therefore, it can be applied to an application where it is indispensable to suppress the generation of bubbles in an injection device from the injection port due to capillary action or the like for a liquid having a large surface tension.

It is explanatory drawing which showed typically one Embodiment of the front cross section in the liquid-crystal dish used for a liquid-crystal injection apparatus. Example 1 It is explanatory drawing which showed typically one Embodiment of the front cross section in the case of storing the liquid crystal in the liquid-crystal dish of FIG. Example 1 It is explanatory drawing which showed typically one Embodiment of the front cross section in the preparation stage which stored the liquid crystal of the liquid-crystal dish with a liquid-crystal injection apparatus. Example 1 It is explanatory drawing which showed typically the form of the front cross section in the step which made the panel contact the liquid crystal dish which stored the liquid crystal in FIG. Example 1 It is explanatory drawing which showed typically one form of the side surface cross section in FIG. Example 1 It is explanatory drawing which showed typically one Embodiment of the front cross section in the liquid-crystal dish used for a liquid-crystal injection apparatus. (Example 2) It is explanatory drawing which showed typically an example of the front cross section in the preparation stage which stored the liquid crystal of the liquid-crystal dish with the conventional liquid crystal injection apparatus. In FIG. 7, it is explanatory drawing which showed typically an example of the front cross section in the step which made the panel contact the liquid-crystal dish which stored the liquid crystal. It is explanatory drawing which showed typically an example of the side surface cross section in FIG. It is plane explanatory drawing which showed an example at the time of the bubble growing up in the liquid crystal and having produced the space in the defoaming process with the conventional liquid crystal dish. FIG. 11 is an explanatory plan view schematically showing an example in a stage where a panel is brought into contact with a liquid crystal dish storing liquid crystals in FIG. 10.

Explanation of symbols

10 Liquid crystal dish 10A Teflon (registered trademark) (water-repellent material coating)
10D Groove part 10E Groove outer periphery 10U Upper surface 11 Water repellency reduction processing part 12 Base metal 20 Liquid crystal 30 Chamber 31 Panel 32 Lifting mechanism 33 Inlet

Claims (5)

  In a liquid crystal dish that is used in a liquid crystal injecting apparatus that injects liquid crystal into a liquid crystal display panel and has water repellency on the surface, water repellency reduction treatment is applied to the inner surface of the groove portion for storing liquid crystals on the side surface and bottom surface of the groove portion excluding the peripheral edge. A liquid crystal dish characterized by having a groove part with improved properties.   2. The liquid crystal dish according to claim 1, wherein the surface subjected to the water repellency reduction treatment is subjected to a treatment including a corona discharge treatment, a blast treatment, or a polishing treatment.   2. The liquid crystal dish according to claim 1, wherein the surface subjected to the water repellency reduction treatment is subjected to a treatment for providing irregularities including various linear streaks on the water-repellent surface.   4. The liquid crystal dish according to claim 1, wherein when the liquid crystal dish has a coating of a water repellent material on a surface of a base metal, the surface subjected to the water repellency reduction treatment is the surface of the base metal surface. A liquid crystal dish used for a liquid crystal injection apparatus, wherein the base metal is treated so as not to leave the coating. 4. The liquid crystal dish according to claim 1, wherein when the liquid crystal dish has a coating of a water repellent material on the surface of the base metal, the surface to be subjected to the water repellency reduction treatment is provided with the base metal. A liquid crystal dish for use in a liquid crystal injection apparatus, wherein a new coating process is applied so as not to expose.

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