JP2981767B2 - Electron beam generator, image forming apparatus and recording apparatus using the same - Google Patents

Description

Description: BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an electron beam generator using an electron-emitting device, and an image forming apparatus and a recording apparatus configured using the electron beam generator. .

[Prior Art] Conventionally, an element capable of emitting electrons with a simple structure includes, for example, [Radio Engineering Electron Physics].
There is known a cold cathode device by Ellison (MIElinson) described in 1965, Vol. 10, pp. 1290-1296.

This utilizes a phenomenon in which electrons are emitted when a current flows in a small-area thin film formed on a substrate in parallel with the film surface, and is generally called a surface conduction electron-emitting device.

Examples of the surface conduction electron-emitting device include a device using a SnO ₂ (Sb) thin film developed by Elinson et al., And “Sin Solid Films”.
In 1972, Vol. 9, p. 317, Au film was published by G. Dittmer, and "I.E.I.E.
IEEE Trans.ED Conf., 1975, 519 pages, M. Hartwell and Fonstad (CG
Fonstad) Co-authored by ITO thin film, “vacuum” 19
In 1983, Vol. 26, No. 1, page 22, there is a report on a carbon thin film published by Hisashi Araki et al.

Typical device configurations of these surface conduction electron-emitting devices are as follows.
Figure 11 shows. In FIG. 11, 1 and 2 are device electrodes for obtaining electrical connection, 15 is a thin film formed of a conductive material,
Reference numeral 6 denotes an insulating substrate, and reference numeral 4 denotes an electron emitting portion. In general, a surface conduction electron-emitting device is one in which the distance between the device electrodes 1 and 2 is 0.01 μm to 100 μm and the specific resistance of the electron-emitting portion 4 is 10 ³ Ω / □ to 10 ⁹ Ω / □. Say.

Conventionally, in these surface conduction electron-emitting devices, before emitting electrons, an electron-emitting portion is formed in advance by an electric heating process called forming. That is, by applying a voltage between the electrode 1 and the electrode 2, the conductive thin film 15 is energized, and the conductive thin film 15 is locally destroyed, deformed or deteriorated by the generated Joule heat, and the The electron emission function is obtained by forming the electron emission portion 4 in a high resistance state.

Further, a substrate coated with a phosphor is used on the element so that the emission characteristics of electron emission of the element, that is, the area where the emitted electrons spread can be visually measured.
Reference numeral 13 denotes a phosphor substrate (a face plate described later), and reference numeral 14 denotes a light emitting unit (a luminescent spot described later) that emits light by emitted electrons.

The emission characteristics of electron emission of the above element are several mm from the above element.
A phosphor substrate 13 is arranged in a space slightly apart, a voltage of several hundred V to several thousand V is applied, and a driving voltage is applied between the electrodes 1 and 2 to emit electrons. Indicates an elongated shape on the phosphor substrate 13 as shown in FIG.

Heretofore, an image forming apparatus has been configured by arranging the electron-emitting portions of the above-mentioned elements linearly and regularly in a line, and forming light-emitting portions for point emission arranged in a line.

[Problems to be Solved by the Invention] However, in the case of the conventional electron-emitting device, since the potential of the insulating substrate on which the electron-emitting device is formed is unstable, the trajectory of the emitted electron beam is unstable due to the influence. Problem.

For this reason, in the image forming apparatus using the electron-emitting device, the shape of the light-emitting portion changes, and the quality of the displayed image deteriorates, which is inconvenient.

Such inconvenience is not limited to the case where the surface conduction electron-emitting device is applied to a display device, but is a problem generally occurring in an electron beam generator using an electron-emitting device formed on an insulating substrate as an electron source. .

[Means and Actions for Solving the Problems] A first aspect of the present invention relates to an electron beam generator that can solve the above problems and can emit a stable electron beam.

That is, a first aspect of the present invention is to provide an electron-emitting device having an electron-emitting portion to which a voltage is applied via electrodes between electrodes arranged side by side on a substrate and the electron-emitting device. A modulation electrode that modulates an electron beam emitted from the element according to an information signal, wherein the electron-emitting device is disposed on the modulation electrode via an insulating layer, and An electrode is present at least at a position surrounding immediately below an electron-emitting portion of the electron-emitting device, and the modulation electrode is asymmetric about the electron-emitting portion of the electron-emitting device. .

The first electron beam generator according to the present invention further has a feature that: the electron-emitting device is a surface conduction electron-emitting device; the modulation electrode has the substrate surface as an XY plane; When juxtaposed along the X-axis, it is asymmetric with respect to the Y-axis orthogonal to the X-axis. A plurality of linear electron-emitting devices to which the plurality of electron-emitting devices are connected; This also includes that a plurality constitutes an XY matrix.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, there is provided an image forming apparatus comprising: the first electron beam generating apparatus according to the first aspect of the present invention; and an image forming member that forms an image by irradiating an electron beam from the electron emitting element. It is in.

A third aspect of the present invention is the first electron beam generator of the present invention, a luminous body which emits light by irradiation with an electron beam emitted from the electron beam generator, and irradiation of light from the luminous body. And a recording medium on which an image is to be recorded.

Further, a fourth aspect of the present invention is the first electron beam generator of the present invention, a luminous body which emits light by irradiation with an electron beam emitted from the electron beam generator, and irradiation of light from the luminous body. And a means for supporting a recording medium on which an image is to be recorded.

FIGS. 1 and 2 show a case where a surface conduction electron-emitting device is used as an electron-emitting device as an example of the electron beam generator of the present invention.

In the present invention, the electron-emitting devices are stacked on the modulation electrode 3 via the insulating layer 7. In this case, the modulation electrode 3
Is symmetrical with respect to the electron-emitting portion 4,
The electric field is uniform in the upper portion near the outside of the electron emitting portion 4.

When the modulation electrode 3 is provided with, for example, a crescent-shaped hole as shown in the figure as a control unit 5 for electron beam rectification and the modulation electrode 3 is made asymmetric, the electric field changes.

The direction of the emitted electrons is determined by the electric field, but this direction is not necessarily perpendicular to the electron emitting portion 4. Therefore, the modulation electrode 3 is made asymmetrical by the control unit 5,
By changing the electric field in the upper portion near the outside of the electron emission section 4, the electron beam can be beneficially controlled.

The control unit 5 can be formed as a notch or a protrusion as shown in FIGS. 4 and 5 in addition to the hole as shown in FIGS. The positions where these control units 5 are formed are positions that do not vertically overlap with the electron emission unit 4 and the device electrodes 1 and 2 so that the electric field in the vicinity of the outside of the electron emission unit 4 can be changed.

In the present invention, to make the modulation electrode 3 asymmetrical means that one or more of the shape, area, and position of the modulation electrode 3 in a range not vertically overlapping the electron emission portion 4 and the device electrodes 1 and 2 are determined. It suffices if the left and right are centered around 4. Therefore, in addition to the formation of the control section 5, an asymmetric shape can be obtained by using a modulation electrode 3 having a different shape in its entire shape, size and position. For example, the modulation electrode 3 may be provided at a position that is not symmetric,
The modulation electrode 3 may be provided only on a part of the periphery of the 2 to make it asymmetrical.

The electron-emitting device used in the present invention has an electron-emitting portion to which a voltage is applied via electrodes between electrodes arranged side by side along the surface of the substrate. Any device can be used as long as it can be stacked via layers. When a surface conduction electron-emitting device is used, 1) higher electron emission efficiency can be obtained, and 2) since the structure is simple, manufacturing is possible. 3) A large number of elements can be arrayed and formed on the same substrate at a high density. 4) The response speed is fast. 5) The brightness contrast when used in a display device is more excellent. It is particularly preferable because it can be obtained. Further, as the surface conduction type electron-emitting device, in addition to the above-described devices, the electron-emitting portion 4 may be formed of fine metal particles dispersed and applied.

As a method of making the modulation electrode 3 asymmetrical, the modulation electrode 3 may be formed asymmetrically from the beginning, or may be formed symmetrically and then asymmetrically by forming a hole or the like.

The material and manufacturing method of the electron-emitting device of the present invention are not limited at all. It is only necessary to provide a control electrode 3 in a conventional element and to provide a control unit 5 as shown in FIGS.

The modulation electrode 3 in the present invention is an electrode for controlling ON / OFF of an electron beam emitted from an electron-emitting device by applying a voltage in accordance with an information signal, and is made of any conductive material. May be formed. Further, there is no limitation on the production method, and not only general photolithography described later but also screen printing, plating and the like may be used.

Example 1 Example 1 An electron beam generator according to an example of the present invention shown in FIGS. 1 and 2 was manufactured in the following manner.

In the figure, reference numerals 1 and 2 denote device electrodes, 3 denotes a modulation electrode, 4 denotes an electron emitting portion, 5 denotes a control portion, 6 denotes an insulating substrate, and 7 denotes an insulating layer.

First, quartz glass (manufactured by Corning Incorporated) serving as the insulating substrate 6 was sufficiently cleaned by rubbing with a neutral detergent and ultrasonic cleaning with an organic solvent, and then a resist pattern was formed by photolithography.

Next, by a resistance heating method, 50 mm thick Ti as an undercoating material for improving adhesion and 950 mm thick N as a material of the modulation electrode 3 are formed.
After i was deposited on the entire surface of the resist pattern, a pattern of the modulation electrode 3 having the control unit 5 shown in FIG. 2 was formed by a lift-off method.

Next, an insulator, SiO _2, was added to the necessary parts by sputtering.
The mask was deposited at a thickness of 5 μm. Then the modulation electrode 3
The pattern of the device electrodes 1 and 2 was formed by the same method as the pattern formation method of (1). At this time, the width of all device electrodes 1 and 2 is 15μ.
m, and the electrode gap was 2 μm.

Further, Cr for patterning the electron-emitting material is vapor-deposited on the entire surface to a thickness of 1000 mm by a resistance heating method, and the vicinity of the electron-emitting portion 4 (25 μm × 150 μm) is formed using photolithography technology.
m) A resist pattern for removing only Cr was formed. Thereafter, the desired Cr was removed by etching. Cerium ammonium nitrate and perchloric acid aqueous solution were used as an etchant.

Next, palladium, which is an electron-emitting material, is dispersed and coated with organic palladium (CCP-4230 manufactured by Okuno Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd.), and the air is heated to 300 ° C.
For 12 minutes. Thereafter, using the above etchant, Cr for patterning the emission material was etched out.

A voltage of 1 KV is externally applied to the phosphor plate under an environment of ~ 2 × 10 ^-6 Torr together with the electron beam generator produced by the above method and the phosphor plate arranged 5 mm above the device, and 14 V is applied between the device electrodes 1 and 2. When the voltage pulse was applied, spot light corresponding to the electron beam emitted to the fluorescent screen was observed. Further, when a voltage of −40 V to +30 V was applied to the modulation electrode 3, not only the amount of the electron beam changed continuously, but also the beam shape changed as shown in FIG. Further, OFF control was possible when the modulation voltage was -40 V or less, and ON control was possible when the modulation voltage was +30 V or more.

Example 2 The electron beam generator shown in FIG. 4 having the control unit 5 shown in FIG. 5 was produced in exactly the same manner as in Example 1. The same reference numerals as those in FIGS. 1 and 2 denote the same members.

This electron beam generator is combined with a fluorescent plate in the same manner as in the first embodiment, and a voltage of 1 KV is externally applied to the fluorescent plate under an environment of 2 × 10 ⁶ Torr, and a voltage pulse of 14 V is applied between the device electrodes 1 and 2. As a result, spot light corresponding to the electron beam emitted to the fluorescent screen was observed. Further, when a voltage of −40 V to +40 V was applied to the modulation electrode 3, not only did the amount of electron beam change continuously, but also the beam shape changed as shown in FIG. OFF when modulation voltage is -40V or less
Control, ON control was possible at + 40V.

Example 3 The electron beam generator shown in FIG. 7 was produced using a soda lime glass (manufactured by Ichikawa Special Glass Co., Ltd.) as the insulating substrate 6.
In this apparatus, a plurality of electron-emitting devices are arranged in a line at a pitch of 2 mm, and a plurality of modulation electrodes 3 are arranged orthogonal to the line-shaped electron-emitting devices.
m. As in the first embodiment, control units 5 shown in FIG. 2 are provided on the modulation electrodes 3 near the element electrodes 1 and 2, respectively. The same reference numerals as those in FIGS. 1 and 2 denote the same members.

Reference numeral 13 denotes a face plate, which is a transparent insulating plate 9 such as a glass plate.
, A transparent electrode 10 such as ITO, a light emitting body 11 such as a phosphor, and a metal back 12. However, the metal back 12 may be omitted when a cold cathode device is used, because it does not emit light by itself.

Next, a face plate 13 having the phosphor 11 was provided at a distance of 5 mm from the insulating substrate 6 of the above-described device, and an image forming apparatus was manufactured.

A voltage of 1.5 KV was applied to the luminous body 11, a voltage pulse of 14V was applied to the pair of device wiring electrodes 8, and electrons were emitted from the plurality of electron-emitting devices arranged in a line. At the same time, a voltage was applied to the modulation electrode 3 as an information signal to control ON / OFF of the electron beam.

Further, a voltage pulse was applied to the adjacent element wiring electrode 8 to perform the one-line display described above. This was sequentially performed to form an image of one screen. That is, an image display was possible by forming an XY matrix with the scanning electrode and the modulation electrode 3 using the element wiring electrode 8 as a scanning electrode.

Embodiment 4 FIG. 8 is an explanatory view of an optical printer using the present electron beam generator. In FIG. 8, reference numeral 16 denotes an optical signal providing device which is the same as the display device described in FIG. As shown in FIG. 7, ZnSiO ₄ : Mn (P1 phosphor) was used.

Referring to FIG. 8, a drum-shaped recording medium will be described.
In addition to the optical signal providing device 16 around the charger 17, the charger 1
8, a developing device 19, a static eliminator 20, and a cleaner 21 are provided. An amorphous silicon photoconductor was used as the electrophotographic photoconductor of the recording medium 17.

First, the recording medium 17 is charged to a positive voltage by the charger 18. The charging voltage is suitably from 100 V to 500 V, but is not limited thereto.

Next, according to the signal information by the optical signal providing device 16,
A voltage is applied to the element wiring electrodes 8 (see FIG. 7) to irradiate the light-emitting pattern on the recording medium 17 to remove electricity from the light-irradiated portions, thereby forming an electrostatic latent image pattern.

Subsequently, the recording medium 17 is exposed to toner by the developing device 19.
Develop.

The portion where the toner particles are adsorbed by the above is the recording medium
It moves with the rotation of 17 and when the static eliminator 20 releases the charge, the adsorbed toner drops. At this time, a paper 22 on which an image is to be formed is located between the recording medium 17 and the static eliminator 20, and the toner is dropped onto the paper 22.

The paper 22 that has received the toner moves to a fixing device (not shown), where the toner is fixed on the paper 22,
The image represented by the optical signal providing device 16 is reproduced and recorded.

On the other hand, the drum-shaped recording medium 17 further rotates and moves to the cleaner 21, where the remaining toner is wiped off,
Further, a charged state is formed by the charger 18.

The optical printer described above is excellent in high resolution and high speed, has no exposure unevenness, and has a high contrast and clear recorded image.

Example 5 FIG. 9 shows another optical printer using the present electron beam generator, in which 23 is a vacuum container (for example, made of glass),
Reference numeral 24 denotes a light-emitting body extraction unit for applying a voltage to the light-emitting body 11 of the face plate 13, 25 is a rear plate, 26 is a modulation electrode extraction unit for applying a voltage to the modulation electrode 3,
Reference numeral 27 denotes an element wiring electrode lead-out portion for applying a voltage to the element wiring electrode 8. The same reference numerals as those in FIGS. 1, 2 and 7 denote the same members.

The recording medium 17 was prepared by uniformly applying a photosensitive composition having the following composition to a polyethylene terephthalate film to a thickness of 2 μm.

The composition contains (a) 10 parts by weight of a binder: polyethylene methacrylate (“Daiyar BR” manufactured by Mitsubishi Rayon Co.), (b) 10 parts by weight of a monomer: trimethylolpropane triacrylate (“TMPTA” manufactured by Shin-Nakamura Chemical Co., Ltd.)
(C) Polymerization initiator: A mixed composition of 2.2 parts by weight of 2-methyl-2 morpholino (4-thiomethylphenyl) propan-1-one (“Irgacure 907” manufactured by Ciba Geigy) and 70 parts by weight of methyl ketone as a solvent did.

As the light emitting body 11 of the face plate 13, a silicate phosphor (Ba, Mg, Zn) ₃ Si ₂ O ₇ Pb ²⁺ was used.

The optical signal providing device 16 was the same as that of the third embodiment.

 Next, a driving state of the apparatus according to the present embodiment will be described.

First, as shown in FIG. 10 (a), the recording medium 17 is irradiated with light by the optical signal providing device 16 while being transported by the transport roller 29 while being supported by the drum-shaped support 28. As a result, a desired image is formed. Further, as shown in FIG. 10 (b), after the required amount of the recording medium 17 is pulled out by the transport roller 29, while the recording medium 17 side is stopped, the light signal is supplied while moving the optical signal providing apparatus 16 side. By performing the irradiation, a desired image can also be formed on the recording medium 17. Here, the distance between the optical signal providing device 16 and the recording medium 17 is preferably 1 mm or less.

In the present embodiment, a modulation signal for one line of an image is applied to the modulation electrode 3 in accordance with an image information signal in synchronization with driving of a row of electron-emitting devices to form a light emission pattern for one line of an image. I do. According to this light emission pattern, the light emitted from the light emitting body 11 is irradiated on the recording medium 17, and the irradiated recording medium 17 is photopolymerized and cured.

After the above curing, the transport roller 29 is moved, and a new recording medium is
After preparing the 17th surface, the same driving is repeated, and the image is cured by photopolymerization for each line.

By performing the above driving, a photopolymerization pattern corresponding to the image information signal is formed on the recording medium 17. Then, by developing this photopolymerization pattern with methyl ethyl ketone, an optical recording pattern can be formed on polyethylene terephthalate.

With the optical printer of this embodiment, a clear, uniform, high-speed, high-contrast optical recording pattern was obtained.

[Effects of the Invention] As described above, in the electron beam generator of the present invention, in the configuration in which the electron-emitting device and the modulation electrode are stacked, the shape of the modulation electrode is asymmetric about the electron-emitting portion of the electron-emitting device. As a result, the control of the electron beam is facilitated, and a high-quality image forming apparatus and recording apparatus can be realized.

[Brief description of the drawings]

1 to 3 are explanatory diagrams of one embodiment of the present invention, FIGS. 4 to 6 are explanatory diagrams of different embodiments, and FIG. 7 is a diagram of an embodiment of an image forming apparatus using the electron beam generator of the present invention. FIG. 8 is an explanatory view of an optical printer using the electron beam generator of the present invention,
9 and 10 are explanatory views of another optical printer using the electron beam generator of the present invention, and FIG. 11 is a view showing a basic structure of a conventional surface conduction electron-emitting device. 1,2: device electrode, 3: modulation electrode 4: electron emission unit, 5: control unit 6: insulating substrate, 7: insulating layer 8: device wiring electrode, 9: transparent insulating plate 10: transparent electrode, 11: light emission Body 12: Metal back, 13: Face plate 14: Bright spot position of luminous body, 15: Conductive thin film 16: Optical signal providing device, 17: Recorded body 18: Charger, 19: Developing device 20: Static eliminator, 21: Cleaner 22: Paper, 23: Vacuum container 24: Light emitting unit take-out unit 25: Rear plate 26: Modulation electrode take-out unit 27: Device wiring electrode take-out unit

──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continuing on the front page (72) Hidetoshi Suzuki, 3-30-2 Shimomaruko, Ota-ku, Tokyo Inside Canon Inc. (72) Tetsuya Kaneko 3-30-2, Shimomaruko, Ota-ku, Tokyo Canon (56) References JP-A-63-6718 (JP, A) JP-A-3-20941 (JP, A) (58) Fields investigated (Int. Cl. ⁶ , DB name) H01J 1/30 , 3/08 H01J 29 / 04,29 / 52 H01J 31/12-31/15

Claims (7)

(57) [Claims] An electron-emitting device having an electron-emitting portion to which a voltage is applied via electrodes between electrodes arranged on a substrate along the surface of the substrate, and emitted from the electron-emitting device. In an electron beam generator having a modulation electrode that modulates an electron beam in accordance with an information signal, the electron-emitting device is disposed on the modulation electrode via an insulating layer, and the modulation electrode is at least An electron beam generator, wherein the modulation electrode is located at a position immediately below an electron-emitting portion of the electron-emitting device, and the modulation electrode is asymmetric around the electron-emitting portion of the electron-emitting device. 2. The electron beam generator according to claim 1, wherein said electron-emitting device is a surface conduction electron-emitting device. 3. The modulation electrode, wherein the substrate surface is an XY plane, and the electrodes are asymmetric with respect to a Y axis orthogonal to the X axis when the electrodes are arranged side by side along the X axis. The electron beam generator according to claim 1. 4. The device according to claim 1, wherein a plurality of linear electron-emitting devices to which a plurality of the electron-emitting devices are connected and a plurality of the modulation electrodes form an XY matrix. An electron beam generator according to claim 1. 5. An image forming apparatus comprising: the electron beam generating apparatus according to claim 1; and an image forming member for forming an image by irradiating an electron beam from the electron emitting element. 6. An electron beam generator according to claim 1, a luminous body which emits light by irradiating an electron beam emitted from said electron beam generator, and a luminous body which radiates light from said luminous body. A recording apparatus comprising: a recording medium on which an image is recorded. 7. An electron beam generator according to claim 1, a luminous body which emits light by irradiating an electron beam emitted from said electron beam generator, and a luminous body which radiates light from said luminous body. A recording apparatus, comprising: means for supporting a recording medium on which an image is recorded.