JP2006289322A - Composite type ink jet head - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a wide composite type ink jet head capable of continuously changing coating interval to meet a substrate corresponding to a flat panel display or an electronic substrate in which various high definition substrates are existed. <P>SOLUTION: In the composite type ink jet head 1, an arm 300 is provided on a rotary shaft 70 capable of rotating at a prescribed rotating angle with respect to the horizontal direction of the substrate plane, two substances formed by arranging a plurality of the ink jet heads 23 across the arm on a line and fixed to brackets 100, 200 are provided and a slide shaft 10 by which at least one of the brackets is slidable in the longitudinal direction is constructed. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2007,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to a composite ink jet head used in a flat panel display manufacturing apparatus and an electronic circuit pattern forming apparatus.

  For example, in the manufacturing process of an organic EL display which is a kind of flat panel display, it is often formed by a vapor deposition method using a low molecular weight light emitting material. In order to form a display by the vapor deposition method, it is necessary to partition each light emitting material of red, green, and blue using a shadow mask. However, since the shadow mask is linearly expanded by radiant heat from the vapor deposition source during vapor deposition, there is a problem that if the screen is enlarged, it will protrude from a predetermined position, and it is said that it is difficult to increase the size of the substrate. . In addition, the entire process is performed in a vacuum, the throughput is small, and the vapor deposition method has characteristics that are unsuitable for mass production such as poor material use efficiency. Thus, for example, as shown in Patent Document 1, in the future, a method of forming a light emitting material layer by dissolving a polymer light emitting material in a solvent to make ink, separately applying each color by an inkjet method, and then drying the solvent Is said to become mainstream.

JP 2002-250811 A

  Since the substrate of the organic EL display has very high precision and high definition, the extension of the conventional printer technology has caused problems such as the protrusion from a predetermined pixel and the inkjet print head being too small to be applied to a large screen. It was. Therefore, it is conceivable to form a wide inkjet head, but this is a problem of processing accuracy, and it is very difficult to form the nozzle position with high accuracy, and a large processing machine is required, so the cost of the inkjet head is high. There are also problems such as becoming. Therefore, it has been proposed to arrange a plurality of ink jet heads that are small and have high precision nozzle positions. However, in this method, only a substrate corresponding to a fixed nozzle arrangement can be handled, and it is necessary to remove the entire substrate every time one inkjet head is replaced and to assemble with high accuracy.

  SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION An object of the present invention is to provide a composite ink jet head that can be applied to substrates of various resolutions and can be applied with high accuracy and wide application.

  In order to achieve the above object, the composite ink jet head of the present invention is provided with an arm on a rotation shaft that can rotate at a predetermined rotation angle with respect to the horizontal direction of the substrate surface, and a plurality of ink jet heads sandwiching the arm. Two linearly arranged and fixed to the brackets are provided, and at least one of the brackets is configured to be slidable in the longitudinal direction of the arm.

  As a result, a plurality of inkjet heads are arranged on one side of the arm of the rotating shaft so that the nozzles are linear with a predetermined interval, and the one side is filled on the other side. Therefore, even if the width of the bank provided on the substrate changes, it is possible to apply ink with high accuracy over a wide range.

  Hereinafter, an embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

  FIG. 1 shows a schematic view of a coating apparatus provided with the composite type ink jet head 1 of the present invention. In this coating apparatus, a portal frame 20 is provided on a base 19 serving as a base. The portal frame 20 is provided with a Z-axis stage 21, which can be moved in the Z-axis direction by a Z-axis drive motor 22. On the Z-axis stage 21, a plurality of inkjet heads 23 a to f are sandwiched between arms 300 that extend in a horizontal direction from a rotary shaft 70 that rotates in the φ direction in parallel with the nozzle surface facing the substrate. It is attached via two head brackets 100, 200 in the form. A series-arranged head unit 1 is constituted by a bracket 100 provided with a plurality of inkjet heads, and a series-arranged head unit 2 is constituted by a bracket 200 similarly provided with a plurality of inkjet heads 1. Further, the portal stage 20 is provided with an ink jet head control unit 33 for storing application data and transmitting an ejection operation command to each of the ink jet heads 23a to 23f according to the application data.

  A Y stage 27 and a Y-axis drive motor 28 are fixed to the center of both leg portions of the portal stage 20 and the upper surface of the gantry 19. On the upper surface of the Y stage 27, an X stage 25 and an X-axis drive motor 26 are attached in a direction orthogonal to the Y stage 27. A θ rotation unit 30 is provided on the upper surface of the X stage 25. Further, a suction table 29 is mounted on the θ rotation unit 30. Finally, the upper surface of the suction table 29 and the upper surface of the gantry 19 are positioned and attached so as to be substantially parallel.

  A plurality of fine suction holes are provided on the upper surface of the suction table 29. The suction hole provided on the upper surface of the suction table 29 communicates with a vacuum generator (not shown). The substrate 34 can be sucked and held on the upper surface of the table by the negative pressure supplied from the vacuum generator. A cleaning device 31 is attached to the front end surface of the suction table 29 for the purpose of preventing clogging of the ink jet heads 23a to 23f and eliminating clogging factors.

  With the above configuration, the suction table 29 is driven in the X direction and the Y direction while the surface of the substrate 34 placed on the suction stage 29 and the discharge port surfaces of the inkjet heads 23a to 23f are kept parallel to each other. The suction plate 29 can be rotationally driven with the center of the upper surface as a rotation axis. The inkjet heads 23 a to 23 f can be driven in the Z direction by the Z axis drive motor 22.

  The descending stroke of the Z-axis drive motor 22 for driving the inkjet heads 23a to 23f of the present invention is set so that at least the cleaning device 31 can move with respect to the inkjet heads 23a to 23f at a distance greater than various cleaning distances. It is.

  A coating material bottle 35 is attached to a bottle holder 36 that can move vertically up and down on the right leg of the portal frame 20 in the figure. Also, a cleaning liquid bottle 32 containing a cleaning solvent for cleaning the internal flow paths of the ink jet heads 23a to 23f is provided in the vicinity of the coating material bottle 35. These can be supplied to the inkjet heads 23a to 23f by supply means (not shown), and supply switching can be performed as appropriate.

  A PC (sometimes referred to as a control device) 37 is provided in the vicinity of the coating device. The PC 37 performs drive control, state monitoring, and the like of component devices attached to the coating apparatus.

  FIG. 2 shows details of an example of a composite type ink jet head unit according to the present invention. The inkjet heads 23a to 23c or the inkjet heads 23d to 23f are arranged so that the nozzle rows 111 to 113 and the nozzle rows 211 to 213 are straight lines, and are fixed to the bracket 100 and the bracket 200, respectively. 1 and 2 are configured. Each bracket 100, 200 is attached to an arm 300 provided on the rotation shaft 70. Inkjet nozzles have a wider outer width than the nozzle row for structural reasons, and therefore, when the nozzles of the inkjet head are arranged in a straight line, discontinuous wide gaps are formed in the nozzle spacing. Therefore, as in the present embodiment, the respective brackets are attached to both sides of the arm 300, and the inkjet heads 23a to 23c provided on the other bracket 100 so as to compensate for the interval between the inkjet heads 23d to 23f attached to the one bracket 200. It is set as the structure which arranged. A linear actuator 10 is provided on at least one side of the bracket so that the arm 300 can move in the extending direction. In this figure, the linear actuator 10 is provided so that the bracket 100 can be moved and the bracket 200 is fixed. However, the bracket 200 may be movable, or both brackets may be movable. Moreover, it is good also as a structure directly fixed to the arm 300, without providing the bracket 200.

  In addition, the print resolution in the X direction can be continuously changed by changing the angle of the rotation axis 70 that rotates about the axis orthogonal to the nozzle plane with the application direction Y by an actuator (not shown). Can do. The distance between the nozzle and the print target surface can be changed by sliding the composite inkjet head in the Z-axis direction by the Z-axis stage 21 and the motor 22.

  FIG. 3 shows an embodiment of the head arrangement of the composite ink jet head of the present invention. In each of the inkjet heads 23a to 23d used in the present embodiment, 128 nozzles are linearly arranged at an interval d = 0.2 mm. Three ink jet heads are arranged in series and fixed to the bracket 100 or 200 to form serially arranged head units 1 and 2. Here, the interval D between the nozzle rows of adjacent inkjet heads is (L + 2d), that is, 25.8 mm. Then, the position head unit 2 is arranged in series with the bracket 200 so as to compensate for the discontinuous portion D of the series arrangement head unit 1 constituted by the bracket 100. That is, the distance d ′ between the end nozzle of the nozzle 111 of one inkjet 23a and the end of the nozzle 211 of the other inkjet head 23d is set to 0.2 mm. Thereby, the nozzle row is continuously aligned from the nozzle 111 to the nozzle 213 in the direction orthogonal to the coating direction, and wide and highly accurate drawing is possible.

  Further, by rotating the rotary shaft 70 and tilting the nozzle array axis by φ with respect to the X direction axis in the drawing, the drawing resolution in the X direction can be reduced. At this time, by sliding the bracket 100 to an arbitrary position in the nozzle arrangement direction with respect to the bracket 200, it is possible to continuously draw with all the nozzles of the six inkjet heads 23a to 23f. This is because the position of the nozzles on the bracket 100 side and the bracket 200 side is shifted by the thickness including the arm 300 and the like, and therefore, the slide correction is necessary at the time of rotation.

  Although not shown, a camera for imaging the nozzle is provided on the gantry 19 side, the nozzle is imaged by this camera, the result is processed by the control device 37, the position is recognized, and the entire head is rotated. Positioning can also be performed by obtaining the amount of rotation of the moving rotary shaft 70 and the amount of movement of the linear actuator 10 for slidingly moving the bracket 100 constituting the head unit 1 arranged in series.

FIG. 4 shows an example of application to an organic EL substrate. The organic EL substrate 60 usually forms a patterned transparent electrode on a glass substrate, forms a SiO ₂ insulating layer thereon, removes a portion of the SiO ₂ insulating layer that becomes the bank 61 to which the light emitting material is applied, and A polyimide film or the like is formed on the SiO ₂ insulating film and subjected to water repellent treatment. The bank 61 on the organic EL substrate 60 is coated with a hole transport material and red, green, and blue light emitting materials that are the base of the element. Usually, the organic EL substrate is full-colored by combining three banks 61, that is, three of red, green, and blue into one display element. Here, the hole transport material is applied to all the banks 61, and the light emitting material is applied every three rows.

The example of FIG. 4 shows a case where a hole transport material is applied to all banks. Coating is performed while moving the substrate from the top to the bottom of the figure. Here, the rotary shaft 70 is set to an angle such that the nozzle interval d × cos φ ₁ becomes the nozzle pitch p in advance. Further, as shown in FIG. 4, the nozzle at the left end of the head 23d is positioned so as to be at the center of the bank row on the right side of the bank row applied by the nozzle at the right end of the head 23a, that is, at the interval p of the bank 60. To do.

In addition, in order to apply with high accuracy, the distance between the substrate surface and the nozzle surface must be 1 mm or less and placed in parallel. In the subsequent coating operation, the substrate 60 is moved downward from the position of the substrate shown in FIG. 4 at a constant speed, and injection is performed when the corresponding nozzle comes on the predetermined bank, whereby the material is applied to the predetermined bank. Hit. In some cases, a plurality of coatings may be applied to one bank. Red substrate 60, green, when applying the blue light emitting material, row spacing of a single color is made in 3 × d, changes the coating gap without reducing the nozzle used by changing the value of phi ₁ be able to.

1 is a schematic view of a coating apparatus equipped with a composite inkjet nozzle head of the present invention. 1 is a schematic view of a composite inkjet nozzle head of the present invention. FIG. 3 is a schematic view of an example of nozzle arrangement of a composite inkjet nozzle head of the present invention. The figure which showed the example which apply | coats to an organic electroluminescent display using the composite type inkjet nozzle head of this invention.

Explanation of symbols

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 ... Composite-type inkjet head, 19 ... Stand, 20 ... Portal stage, 21 ... Z-axis stage, 22 ... Z-axis drive motor, 23a-23f ... Inkjet head, 25 ... X stage, 27 ... Y stage, 30 ... Rotating unit, 29 ... suction table, 31 ... head cleaning device, 34 ... substrate, 35 ... luminescent material bottle, 37 ... control device, 32 ... cleaning liquid bottle, 111-113 ... nozzle row, 211-223 ... nozzle row, 100 ... Bracket, 200 ... bracket, 10 ... slide shaft, 70 ... rotating shaft, 11 ... nozzle, 60 ... organic EL display substrate, 61 ... bank.

Claims (4)

In a composite inkjet head configured by combining a plurality of inkjet heads with an inkjet head in which a plurality of nozzles are arranged on a straight line at the same interval,
There are provided two brackets in which a plurality of inkjet heads are linearly arranged and fixed, an arm is provided on a rotation shaft that can be rotated at a predetermined rotation angle with respect to the horizontal direction of the substrate surface, and the two above-mentioned A composite type ink jet head, wherein a bracket is attached and at least one of the brackets is slidable in the longitudinal direction of the arm. The composite inkjet head according to claim 1,
When the arm provided on the rotating shaft is perpendicular to the moving direction of the substrate, the nozzle row of the inkjet head provided on the other side of the nozzle row of the inkjet head provided on the one side of the substrate is A composite ink jet head, wherein the ink jet head is arranged so as to be continuous in a direction perpendicular to the moving direction. The composite inkjet head according to claim 1,
A composite ink jet head, wherein the ink jet head fixed to the bracket is positioned and fixed so that an interval between the ink jet heads is an integral multiple of a nozzle interval. 2. The composite ink-jet head according to claim 1, wherein the position of the nozzle is recognized by a camera, and the amount of rotation of a rotary shaft for rotating the entire head and the movement of the bracket according to the interval between banks provided on the substrate. A composite type ink jet head characterized in that an ink jet head is positioned by obtaining an amount.

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