JP2006219755A - Vapor deposition system - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a vapor deposition system with a structure where, even when a liquefied organic material is condensed to the lower side of a cover body, the organic material does not leak to the outside of a crucible. <P>SOLUTION: The vapor deposition system is provided with a crucible 22 arranged at the lower part of a substrate used for an organic EL device and vacuum-depositing an organic material. The crucible 22 comprises: a storage part 24; a cover body 26; and a heater. Further, in the cover body 26, a blow-off port 28 from which the organic material is blown off is opened, and, at the lower side in the vicinity of the outer circumferential part in the cover body 26, an eave part 30 fitted to the inside of the opening part in the storage part 24 is projected to the lower part. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2006,JPO&NCIPI

Description

  The present invention relates to a vapor deposition apparatus.

  In recent years, an organic EL display device in which a plurality of organic EL (electroluminescence) elements are arranged in a matrix as a thin display device has attracted attention. An organic EL element is configured by sandwiching a light emitting layer made of an organic material between a cathode and an anode. The light emitting layer in the organic EL element has low water resistance, and when the light emitting layer is formed, it is generally formed by a vacuum vapor deposition technique which is one of vacuum thin film forming techniques.

  As a technique for forming such a light emitting layer, a technique for relatively moving a substrate to be formed and a line-type evaporation source is known (see, for example, Patent Document 1).

  When this organic material is vacuum-deposited on a substrate, in the vacuum atmosphere, the substrate is placed facing the line-type deposition source through a mask, while the deposition source is heated, the length of the deposition source is increased. An organic material is formed on the opposite surface of the substrate by relative movement in a direction perpendicular to the direction.

The deposition source has a deposition width that sufficiently covers the length in the direction orthogonal to the moving direction of the substrate.
JP 2003-157773 A

  By the way, in order to control the amount of light emitted from the vapor deposition source, a crucible 100 having a structure in which the storage unit 102 is covered with the lid 104 as shown in FIG. 4 is trapped on the inner surface of the lid 104. It has been found that the deposited material may be liquefied and leak out of the crucible 100 through the lid 104.

  Therefore, in view of the above problems, the present invention provides a vapor deposition apparatus having a structure in which even if a vapor deposition material is liquefied by a lid, the vapor deposition material does not leak out of the crucible.

  The present invention is a housing, a storage portion that is disposed in the housing and stores the vapor deposition material, a lid body that is disposed on the upper surface of the storage portion and includes a blowout port that emits the vapor deposition material, And a heating means for heating the crucible, and the lid body has an eaves portion fitted to the inner wall of the opening of the storage portion.

  ADVANTAGE OF THE INVENTION According to this invention, it can prevent that a vapor deposition material leaks outside undesirably, a vapor deposition rate can be stabilized, and the film thickness of a vapor deposition film can be stabilized.

  An embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to FIGS.

  This embodiment relates to a vacuum deposition apparatus for stacking an organic layer composed of a hole injection layer, a hole transport layer, a light emitting layer, an electron transport layer, and the like on a substrate 10 used in an organic EL device, and realizes a vacuum state. The substrate 10 is disposed inside the chamber (housing) and vacuum deposition is performed.

(1) Method of vacuum deposition Hereinafter, a method of vacuum depositing an organic material on the substrate 10 will be described with reference to FIGS.

  The substrate 10 is held by the holding mechanism with the deposition surface facing downward so that the deposition surface is disposed facing the deposition source by being attracted by the magnet 20 in a vacuum atmosphere inside the chamber. That is, as shown in FIG. 3, a stainless steel mask support 12 is disposed on the deposition surface of the substrate 10, and the surface opposite to the deposition surface of the substrate 10 is made of aluminum or copper. The holding plate 18 is disposed, and the magnet 20 attracts the mask support portion 12 to hold the substrate 10. The mask support 12 is provided with a mask made of iron-chromium alloy inside the frame-shaped frame portion 14.

  Below the substrate 10 held as described above, a crucible 22 is arranged with a predetermined interval (for example, 150 mm). The crucible 22 has a rectangular parallelepiped box shape, and is scanned at a constant speed (for example, 10 to 20 mm / second) in a direction orthogonal to the longitudinal direction of the crucible 22 by a moving means that allows the crucible 22 to move. . The length in the longitudinal direction of the crucible 22 is set to such an extent that the deposition width can cover the length of the substrate in the direction orthogonal to the relative movement direction.

  The crucible 22 includes a storage unit 24 and a lid body 26, and an organic material is stored in the storage unit 24. This detailed configuration will be described later. On the upper surface of the lid 26, a plurality of air outlets 28 through which the sublimated organic material is emitted are opened along the crucible longitudinal direction. Further, heaters 25 are built in both side walls of the crucible 22 to heat the stored organic material.

  As described above, when the crucible 22 is moved in the longitudinal direction of the substrate 10 at a predetermined speed, the organic material sublimated by heating is selectively applied to a portion of the deposition surface of the substrate 10 that is not covered by the mask 16. An organic material is deposited. In addition, the rectangular shape along the crucible longitudinal direction may be sufficient as a blower outlet.

(2) Structure of the crucible 22 The structure of the crucible 22 used in the vacuum deposition will be described with reference to FIGS.

  The crucible 22 has a rectangular parallelepiped box shape and includes a storage section 24 and a lid body 26. The reservoir 24 has a two-layer structure, the outer side is made of carbon or graphite, and the inner side in contact with the organic material is made of quartz glass.

  The lid body 26 has a shape that covers the opening on the upper surface of the storage portion 24 and the side wall of the storage portion 24, and a plurality of air outlets 28 are opened at predetermined intervals on the upper surface of the lid body 26. Further, an eaves portion 30 protrudes downward from the lower surface of the lid body 26. As shown in FIGS. 1 and 2, the eaves portion 30 protrudes along the four peripheral portions of the lower surface of the lid body 26 so as to fit inside the wall of the storage portion 24.

  The distance (gap) between the inner wall of the opening of the reservoir 24 and the eaves 30 fitted to the inner wall is preferably 0.5 mm or less. By carrying out like this, it can prevent that a vapor deposition material liquefies on the ceiling surface of the cover body between an eaves part and a storage part.

  The present embodiment is particularly effective when the difference between the melting temperature of the vapor deposition material and the sublimation temperature (vapor deposition temperature) is large. This embodiment is essential when the difference between the melting temperature and the sublimation temperature is 150 ° C. or more. For example, the melting point of the vapor deposition material is smaller than 200 ° C., and the vapor deposition temperature exceeds 350 ° C.

  The inside of the lid body 26 is coated with a coating material and has a structure that does not soak organic materials. As this coating material, for example, BN (bone nitride) or SiC (silicon carbide) is suitable.

  In addition, the inside of the storage part 24 may not be comprised with quartz glass, but you may coat this coating material.

  In the case of the crucible 22, the organic material is heated by the heater 25 and sublimates into a gas to be blown out from the outlet 28. In this case, when a part of the organic material is trapped and condensed on the lower surface of the lid 26, that is, the ceiling surface, the liquefied organic material is removed from the lid 26 as shown in FIGS. It travels through the ceiling surface and the eaves part 30 to reach the inner wall of the storage part 24 and returns to the liquid organic material.

  Therefore, the organic material does not leak out of the crucible 22 without flowing between the storage portion 24 and the lid body 26 as in the prior art.

(Second Embodiment)
In the above embodiment, the substrate 10 is fixed and the crucible 22 is moved. Alternatively, the crucible 22 may be fixed and the substrate 10 may be moved.

  In this case, not only the substrate 10 may be moved linearly, but also the crucible 22 may be arranged at the center of the lower surface of the substrate 10 and the substrate 10 may be rotated at the center to perform vacuum deposition.

It is the longitudinal cross-sectional view seen from the side of the 1st Embodiment of this invention. It is the longitudinal cross-sectional view of the crucible similarly seen from the front. It is a perspective view of a vacuum evaporation system. It is a longitudinal cross-sectional view of the conventional crucible.

Explanation of symbols

10 crucible 12 storage part 14 lid 28 outlet 30 eaves part

Claims (14)

A housing,
A crucible having a storage part for storing a vapor deposition material, and a lid provided on the upper surface of the storage part and provided with an outlet for emitting the vapor deposition material;
Heating means for heating the crucible,
The said cover was provided with the eaves part fitted to the opening inner wall of the said storage part. The vapor deposition apparatus characterized by the above-mentioned. The vapor deposition apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the vapor deposition apparatus includes a holding mechanism that holds a member to be vapor-deposited. The vapor deposition apparatus according to claim 2, wherein the vapor deposition apparatus includes moving means that can move relative to the vapor deposition target member. The vapor deposition apparatus according to claim 3, wherein the crucible has a rectangular parallelepiped box shape whose longitudinal direction is a direction orthogonal to a moving direction of the vapor deposition target member. The said blower outlet is a rectangular shape opened in the said longitudinal direction. The vapor deposition apparatus of Claim 4 characterized by the above-mentioned. The vapor deposition apparatus according to claim 4, wherein the air outlet has a plurality of openings arranged in the longitudinal direction. The vapor deposition apparatus according to claim 1, wherein a distance between the inner wall of the opening and the eaves part fitted to the inner wall of the opening is 0.5 mm or less. The vapor deposition apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the vapor deposition material is melted by the heating unit and then sublimated and emitted. The vapor deposition apparatus according to claim 8, wherein a difference between a melting temperature and a sublimation temperature of the vapor deposition material is 150 ° C. or more.   The vapor deposition apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the vapor deposition material is an organic material.   The vapor deposition apparatus according to claim 2, wherein the vapor deposition member is a substrate used in an organic EL device. The vapor deposition apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the crucible is formed of carbon or graphite, and an inner side where the organic material is in contact is formed of quartz glass.   2. The crucible is formed of carbon or graphite, and an inner side with which the organic material is in contact is coated with BN (bone nitride) or SiC (silicon carbide). Vapor deposition equipment. The vapor deposition apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the crucible is made of metal.

Images