JPH01161252A - Manufacturing apparatus for electrophotographic sensitive body - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To speed up raising and lowering temperature at the time of forming a film, and to obtain uniform characteristics by using a material same as a substrate for a support for holding the substrate at the prescribed position. CONSTITUTION:The support 2 for holding the cylindrical aluminum substrate 100 is made of the same material as the substrate 100 and it has an outer diameter same as that of the substrate 100, thus permitting the time required for raising and lowering temperature at the time of forming the film to be reduced as compared with the time required in the case of using the conventional ones, and the photosensitive body to be made uniform in characteristics, such as temperature distribution, to be obtained.

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] [Summary] Relating to an electrophotographic photoreceptor manufacturing apparatus for forming a photoreceptor whose main constituent material is amorphous silicon on a substrate, the temperature rising and cooling times during photoreceptor film formation are shortened. In an electrophotographic photoreceptor manufacturing apparatus for forming a photoreceptor whose main constituent material is amorphous silicon on a substrate, the substrate is heated in a predetermined manner. A support base for holding the base body at the position is formed of the same material as the base body.

[Industrial application field]

The present invention relates to an electrophotographic photoreceptor manufacturing apparatus for forming a photoreceptor whose main constituent material is amorphous silicon on the surface of a substrate.

A photoconductor formed on a cylindrical substrate made of aluminum or the like is uniformly charged, and a laser beam or the like is irradiated onto the photoconductor in a predetermined pattern based on the printed information to attenuate the charged potential of the photoconductor and form a latent image. Electrophotographic recording devices that transfer and fix the formed toner image onto recording paper after forming the toner image are well known, but in recent years, mechanical photoreceptors have become more popular than selenium-based photoreceptors. Amorphous silicon (a-3t), which has strong mechanical strength, has come to be used.

The present invention is applied to an apparatus for manufacturing an electrophotographic photoreceptor equipped with this a-3i photosensitive layer.

[Conventional technology]

Conventionally, a plasma CVD device or the like has been used as this manufacturing device, but when forming a film using this device, the substrate of the photoreceptor is held at a predetermined position in a vacuum container by a support stand and the film is formed. was. Conventionally, this support has been made of stainless steel and has the same outer diameter as the base in order to eliminate the influence of the end of the discharge electrode facing the base. The reason why stainless steel is used is that there is little contamination of impurities into the photosensitive layer being formed, and that it can be reused by removing the film attached to the support by etching.

On the other hand, aluminum is used for the base body because it is inexpensive, lightweight, and easy to machine.

[Problem that the invention seeks to solve]

However, the above-mentioned conventional manufacturing apparatus had the following various drawbacks.

(1) When forming a-3i photosensitive film, the substrate should be heated to 150 to 35
It is necessary to heat it to 0℃, but since stainless steel (supporting base) has a larger heat capacity than aluminum (substrate), it is easy to create a temperature distribution on the substrate, and the film quality is also distributed in the length direction of the photoreceptor. This caused the inconvenience that the characteristics were different between the two. 7(2) Since a stainless steel support is used, the temperature is increased.

It took an extremely long time for the temperature to cool down.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION An object of the present invention is to provide an apparatus for manufacturing an electrophotographic photoreceptor that can shorten the temperature rise and fall times during photoreceptor film formation and obtain a photoreceptor with uniform characteristics.

[Means for solving problems]

In order to solve the above-mentioned problems, the present invention provides an electrophotographic photoreceptor manufacturing apparatus for forming a photoreceptor whose main constituent material is amorphous silicon on a substrate. The support base is made of the same material as the base body.

[Effect]

One of the reasons for conventionally using stainless steel for the support base, ``less contamination of impurities into the photosensitive layer'', is not a problem because the support base is made of the same material as the base. Another reason for ``reusability'' is that if the support is made of the same inexpensive aluminum as the base, even if it is disposable, it will be more cost-effective than etching stainless steel. .

〔Example〕

The invention will now be described in detail in conjunction with the drawings.

FIG. 1 shows a first embodiment.

FIG. 1 is a schematic structural diagram of an apparatus for manufacturing an electrophotographic photoreceptor using a high-frequency power source. In the figure, 100 is an aluminum cylindrical base, ■ is a vacuum container, and 2 is a support stand. The support base 2 is made of the same aluminum as the base 100 and has the same outer diameter as the base 100.

Film formation on a photoreceptor using this manufacturing apparatus is performed as follows.

When forming a film, first, a substrate 1 is placed on a support 2 in a vacuum container 1.
00 with their outer circumferential surfaces aligned, and set pumps 3, 4, 5.
6 as appropriate to evacuate the inside of the vacuum container 1. Then, the support stand 2 is rotated together with the base body 100 by the rotation mechanism 7, and the base body 100 is heated to 150 to 350° C. by the heater 8. Next, silane-based raw material gas (Si) lt, 5iz
L, etc.), hydrocarbon gases (CH4, CJi, C3He,
CzHz, etc.) and diborane gas for doping (B2H
2) etc. from cylinders 9, 10, 11, etc. as necessary to flow meters 12. 1'3. 14 and is introduced from a spout 16 provided inside the discharge electrode 15. Then, high frequency power is supplied from the high frequency power source 17 to connect the discharge electrode 15 and the base 1.
00 to cause a glow discharge to decompose the gas into plasma, forming a thin film on the substrate 100.

When we created the a-3i illuminant using the above procedure, the heating time was 2 hours to 0.5 hours, and the temperature cooling time was 3 hours to 1 hour, compared to the conventional case where stainless steel was used for the support base. It was shortened, and the temperature distribution was constant. Furthermore, the characteristics of the photoreceptor, which had conventionally been inferior at the ends of the substrate compared to the center of the substrate, have become constant.

A second embodiment is shown in FIGS. 2 to 6.

Figure 2 is an explanatory diagram of the structure of an electrophotographic photoreceptor manufacturing apparatus using a microwave power source (Figure 2 (a) is a plan view of the main parts, and Figure 2 (b) is a front view showing the overall outline). In the figure, 31 is a vacuum container, 32 is a support base, 33.37 is a valve, 34 is a motor for rotating the support base 32, 35 is a heater connected to a heater power source 36, 38 is a microwave power source, 3
9 is a waveguide; 40 is a window for microwave passage; 41 is a plasma chamber formed between the vacuum container 31 and the base 100 held on the support base 32 to constitute a coaxial cavity resonator;
2.42' is a magnet, and 21.21' is a superconducting ring made of superconducting material and movable in the direction of the arrow. The support stand 32 is made of aluminum and has the same outer diameter as the base body 100, as in the previous example.

This manufacturing equipment is disclosed in Japanese Patent Application No. 62-1 filed by the present applicant.
This is an improved version of the manufacturing device disclosed in No. 87710 (filed on July 29, 1988), and is different from the device in this previous application in that it includes a superconducting ring 2121' and a support stand as described above. The difference is that the material is set. By the way, in this type of apparatus, when forming a film, the motor 34 rotates the support base 32 together with the base 100, and the heater 35 heats the base 100 to a predetermined temperature.

Then, the silicon atom-containing gas introduced into the plasma chamber 41 is decomposed and turned into plasma by microwave power supplied from the microwave power source 38 through the waveguide 39° window 40. A magnetic field is applied by energizing ′.

As a result, plasma is confined near the substrate, and an a-5t film is formed on the substrate 100.

In this case, since a constant pressure wave is generated in the axial direction, the plasma also has a distribution, and the thin film formed on the cylindrical substrate 100 becomes uneven. In order to prevent this, in the device of the previous application, a current I mag, 1.
mag' is set as shown in Figure 4. However, since the magnet requires a magnetic flux density B of 8.75XIO-27 (for a microwave frequency of 2.45 G11z) or higher, it is necessary to have a capability of 9 or more, so n-1mag (n: number of turns) must be increased. In order to increase I mag, an expensive large current power supply and cooling of the magnet become a problem. In addition, increasing n makes devices such as power supplies cheaper, but since the self-inductance of the magnet increases in proportion to n, there is the problem that it becomes difficult to vary I mag at a fast rate of several Hz. was there.

These problems can be solved by using the superconducting rings 21, 21' of this example. Figure 5 is a diagram explaining the principle. When a superconducting ring 21 made of superconducting material is inserted into a magnetic field as shown in the figure, the magnetic flux avoids the superconducting member due to the Meissner effect, so the magnetic flux is confined within the ring. magnetic flux density increases. Therefore, superconducting ring 21.21
By attaching ', it is possible to create a magnetic flux density distribution as shown in Figure 6. And this superconducting ring 21°21
' By reciprocating in the axial direction, the magnet 42
．． The same effect as in the case of the previous application in which the current flowing through 42' is varied can be obtained. Furthermore, the current flowing through the magneto 42, 42' can be kept constant, and the power supply can be made smaller by increasing the number of turns of the magnet 42, 42'. Furthermore, if superconducting wire is used for the windings of the magnets 42 and 42', -
Once the magneto is excited, no power source is required, which is very effective.

In the case of this example as well, the support stand 32 is made of the same aluminum as the base 100 and has the same outer diameter as the base 100, so that it shortens the heating and cooling times during photoreceptor film formation and provides uniform It is possible to obtain the same effect as in the previous example that a photoreceptor with special characteristics can be obtained.

When forming a photoreceptor film on the surface of the substrate 100 using this apparatus, the substrate 100 is held on the support stand 32 in the vacuum container l (at this time, the support stand 32 and the outer periphery of the substrate 100 are flush with each other). ) to form a film. The outline of the film forming procedure has been described above, but a supplementary explanation thereof is as follows.

After setting the base 100, the inside of the vacuum container 31 is opened with the valve 3.
The substrate 100 is evacuated through the heater 35 and
The raw material gas is heated to 0 to 350° C. and introduced into the vacuum container 31 via the valve 37 .

Then, from the microwave power source 38 to the waveguide 39. Microwaves are introduced into the plasma chamber 41 through the window 40 to decompose the source gas and deposit a thin film on the substrate 100. At this time, a constant current was passed through the magnets 42, 42', and the superconducting ring 21, 21' was caused to reciprocate over a distance of 4 cm at a frequency of IHz.

When the a-3i photosensitive material was produced in this manner, it was possible to obtain a good quality and uniform product in a short period of time.

〔Effect of the invention〕

As described above, according to the present invention, it is possible to shorten the temperature rising and cooling times during film formation of a photoreceptor, and to produce a photoreceptor with uniform characteristics.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a structural schematic explanatory diagram of an apparatus for manufacturing an electrophotographic photoreceptor using a high-frequency power source according to a first embodiment of the present invention, and FIGS. 2(a) and (b) are a diagram showing a second embodiment of the present invention. Fig. 3 is a graph showing the magnetic flux density distribution in the plasma chamber in the case where there is no superconducting ring according to the second embodiment of the present invention. , Fig. 4 is a waveform diagram of the current supplied to the magnet, Fig. 5 is a diagram explaining the principle of the superconducting ring according to the second embodiment of the present invention, and Fig. 6 is a diagram showing the principle of the superconducting ring according to the second embodiment of the present invention. This is a graph showing the magnetic flux density distribution inside the plasma chamber. In the figure, 1.31 is a vacuum vessel, 2.32 is a support, and 100 is a base.

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] An electrophotographic photoreceptor manufacturing apparatus for forming a photoreceptor whose main constituent material is amorphous silicon on a substrate (100), comprising: a device for holding the substrate (100) in a predetermined position; An apparatus for manufacturing an electrophotographic photoreceptor, characterized in that the support base (2, 32) is made of the same material as the base (100).