JPH06122203A - Manufacture of nozzle plate of ink jet head - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To provide a manufacturing method of an ink jet head wherein the extremely accurate drilling of nozzles on a nozzle plate can be executed in a nozzle plate forming process. CONSTITUTION:A photo resist is applied on a region where a nozzle hole 50 is formed on a plate 59. A region on the plate 59 where photo resist is not covered is applied with copper plate 104 as a mask to remove the photo resist. After that, the plate 59 with the mask of copper plate is irradiated with a laser beam to form a nozzle hole 50, thereby achieving the nozzle plate of the ink jet head.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a method for manufacturing an ink jet head of a printer, and more particularly to a method for manufacturing a nozzle plate.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, piezoelectric ink jet heads have been proposed. The head has a plurality of ejection devices. This ejecting device changes the volume of the ink chamber by the dimensional displacement of the piezoelectric actuator, ejects the ink in the ink chamber when the volume decreases, and introduces the ink into the ink chamber when the volume increases. It is called the on-demand method. Then, by arranging a large number of such ejection devices close to each other to form a head and ejecting ink from the ejection device at a predetermined position, desired characters or images can be formed.

Such an ink jet head will be specifically described with reference to a perspective view of the head 1 shown in FIG. 4 and a partial sectional view of the head 1 shown in FIG.

By joining the piezoelectric ceramic plate 2 having a plurality of side walls 5 and polarized in the direction of the arrow 28 to the lid 6, a large number of parallel plates having a space therebetween in the lateral direction in FIG. The ink flow path 4 is formed. The ink flow path 4 has a long and narrow rectangular cross section, and the side wall 5 extends over the entire length of the ink flow path 4 and can be deformed perpendicularly to the central axis of the ink flow path 4. Therefore, the deformation of the side wall 5 changes the volume of the ink flow path 4, and the ink flow path 4
The ink pressure inside changes. In the lower half (or upper half) area of the surface of the side wall 5, a drive electrode 7 for applying a drive electric field is formed.
Is formed, and the surface of the drive electrode 7 is subjected to an insulation treatment for insulating the ink from the drive electrode 7. A nozzle plate 60 having a nozzle hole 50 communicating with one end of each ink flow path 4 is fixed to one end of the piezoelectric ceramic plate 2 and the lid 6 with an adhesive 70. The nozzle plate 60, an ink supply unit (not shown) that communicates with the other end of the ink flow path 4, a side wall 5 that forms the ink flow path 4, and a lid 6 that closes the ink flow path 4 and an ejection device. 34 is configured.

In this head 1, as shown in FIG.
When, for example, the ejection device 34B is selected according to the predetermined print data, the driving electrode 7C,
A driving electric field 10 is applied between 7D and each of the driving electrodes 7E and 7F. At this time, since the driving electric field direction and the polarization direction are orthogonal to each other, the side walls 5B and 5C are deformed in a dogleg shape toward the outside of the ink flow path 4B due to the piezoelectric thickness sliding effect. At this time, ink is supplied into the ink flow path 4B. After that, when the application of the driving electric field 10 is cut off, the side walls 5B and 5C return to their original positions. Due to this deformation, the ink pressure in the ink flow path 4B becomes large, and the ink flow path 4B
Ink droplets are ejected from the nozzle hole 50 corresponding to.

As a conventional method for manufacturing the nozzle plate 60, for example, the method disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 3-101960 is known.

As shown in FIG. 6, an excimer laser device 61 is provided.
The laser beam 64 oscillated by the optical lens system 66
The copper mask 62 is irradiated with the light through. On the mask 62, an enlarged similar pattern of a predetermined nozzle pattern of the nozzle plate 60 is formed. The laser beam 64 passing through the mask 62 is further focused on the plate 59 by the lens 67, and the nozzle hole 50 having a predetermined shape is formed at a predetermined position of the plate 59. In this way, the nozzle plate 60 is formed by forming a large number of nozzle holes 50 having a predetermined shape at predetermined positions on the plate 59. The plate 59 is made of a material that does not deteriorate with respect to the solvent in the ink component, such as polyimide resin.

Thereafter, as shown in FIG. 7, the nozzle plate 60 is adhered to the piezoelectric ceramic plate 2 and one end surface of the lid 6 with an adhesive 70.

[0009]

In the conventional method for manufacturing the nozzle plate 60 of the ink jet head as described above, there is a gap between the mask 62 and the plate 59 made of polyimide or the like, so that the laser beam 64 is scattered. Or the alignment with the mask 62 tends to be incorrect,
As a result, there is a problem that it is difficult to process the nozzle plate with high accuracy and the defective rate of the product increases.

The laser beam 6 is projected onto the plate 59.
It is expected that the number of lenses 67 for condensing 4 will be the same as the number of nozzle holes 50 formed on the plate 59.
It is expected that there will be problems such as the manufacturing facilities becoming very complicated.

The present invention has been made in order to solve the above-mentioned problems, and it is possible to easily form a nozzle hole with high accuracy and to significantly reduce the defective rate of products in the nozzle plate forming step. An object of the present invention is to provide a method for manufacturing a nozzle plate of an inkjet head that can be used.

[0012]

In order to achieve this object, a method of manufacturing a nozzle plate for an ink jet head according to the present invention comprises a main body having a plurality of ink channels formed therein, and a main body fixed to the main body. A method of manufacturing a nozzle plate for an inkjet head, comprising: a nozzle plate having a plurality of nozzle holes formed therein, each of which communicates with one end of a plurality of ink channels; A step of forming a high-energy-ray blocking mask in close contact with a region other than the above and a step of irradiating the plate on which the mask is formed with a high-energy ray are provided.

[0013]

According to the method of manufacturing a nozzle plate for an ink jet head of the present invention having the above structure, since the plate and the mask are in close contact with each other, there is no defect in the shape of the nozzle hole due to scattering of high energy rays, and the nozzle hole is aligned. Can be performed accurately, and extremely accurate nozzle hole machining is possible.
Also, the mask does not have to be removed after drilling, rather
If the mask is formed by a surface treatment film such as metal plating, a nozzle plate having excellent strength and corrosion resistance can be formed.

[0014]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment embodying the present invention will be described below with reference to FIG.
~ It demonstrates in detail with reference to FIG. The same parts as those in the conventional example and the equivalent parts will be described with the same reference numerals.

First, as shown in FIG. 1A, the plate 5 is
Photoresist 102 is applied on the surface of 9 at positions where nozzle holes are to be formed. The plate 59 is preferably made of a material having solvent resistance to the ink components used. For example, it is a polyimide resin or the like. Photoresist 1 on plate 59
Before applying 02, chemical corrosion treatment, which is one step of pretreatment for plating, is performed in advance. This is a treatment in which the plate 59 is immersed in a chromic acid-sulfuric acid mixed liquid for several minutes, and the surface of the plate 59 is made hydrophilic. By making the surface of the plate 59 hydrophilic, the wettability between the surface of the plate 59 and the electroless plating solution is improved and the adhesion between the plate 59 and the plating film is improved in the subsequent electroless plating process. be able to. The photoresist 102 is applied by well-known photolithography.

Further, a sensitizing process and an activating process, which are pre-plating process steps, are performed. The sensitization treatment involves immersing the plate 59 in a stannous chloride / hydrochloric acid aqueous solution for several minutes.
For activation, plate 5 on palladium chloride / hydrochloric acid solution.
This is a treatment of dipping 9 for several minutes.

When the plate 59 which has been coated with the photoresist 102 and subjected to the above treatment is dipped in the electroless plating solution, the photoresist 102 is formed as shown in FIG. 1B.
Plating layer 1 as a mask on the part not coated with
04 is formed. Copper plating is generally used for plating, but nickel plating or silver plating can also be used. In the case of copper plating, a copper sulfate-based electroless plating solution is generally used.

Next, the photoresist 102 is removed with an organic solvent as shown in FIG. 1C, and finally a high energy ray, for example, an excimer laser beam 64 is irradiated as shown in FIG. When the nozzle plate 60 is melted, a plurality of nozzle holes 50 are formed at predetermined positions.
Is completed.

It is desirable that the nozzle hole is most suitable for fine hole processing. In this embodiment, as shown in FIG. 2, a KrF excimer laser beam 64 having a wavelength of 248 nm is used, and the nozzle plate 60 has the same nozzle hole shape and pitch. A hole was drilled through the plated layer 104 and the lens 100 that were in close contact with. A plurality of holes having a diameter of 30 μm were formed at the same pitch. Here, in drilling with an excimer laser, generally, as shown in FIG. 2, the hole diameter on the laser incident side is larger than the hole diameter on the exit side, that is, a tapered hole is machined.

As shown in FIG. 3, the ink jet head 1 is constructed by adhering the nozzle plate 60 produced by the above method to the piezoelectric ceramics plate 2 having the ink flow path 4 and the lid 6 with the adhesive 70 as shown in FIG. .
The adhesive 70 is preferably applied to the surface of the nozzle plate 60 on which the plating layer 104 is formed, and adheres to the piezoelectric ceramic plate 2 and the lid 6. The reason is that the nozzle hole 50 generally has a taper on the ink flow path 4 side and a small discharge side when the ink flow path 4 side is small and the discharge side is large, or when the ink flow path 4 side and the discharge side are the same. This is because the resistance applied when ejecting ink droplets is smaller than that of a straight nozzle hole without a taper, and the amount of ink droplets and the ejection speed can be stably obtained.

The present invention is not limited to the above-described embodiments, and various modifications can be made without departing from the spirit of the invention. For example, in the present embodiment, the method of forming the plating layer 104 by the electroless plating method using the polyimide resin for the nozzle plate 60 has been described, but a vacuum deposition method or the like can also be used as the method of forming the plating layer 104. is there. If the material used for the nozzle plate 60 is a material having conductivity, the plating layer 104 can be formed by electroplating.

[0022]

As is apparent from the above description, in the method of manufacturing a nozzle plate for an ink jet head of the present invention, a high energy ray blocking mask is provided in a region of the plate excluding a region where a nozzle hole is to be formed. Since the step of closely forming and the step of irradiating the plate on which the mask is formed with high-energy rays are performed, the nozzle holes can be accurately aligned, and extremely accurate nozzle hole processing can be performed. Further, the mask pattern does not need to be removed after drilling, but rather is covered with a surface treatment film such as metal plating, so that a nozzle plate with excellent strength and corrosion resistance is formed, and a nozzle plate with higher reliability is provided. It can be provided.

Further, in the nozzle plate manufacturing method of the present invention, since the optical lens system in the high energy beam irradiation apparatus can be simplified, the manufacturing equipment can be simplified.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a method of forming a nozzle plate according to an embodiment.

FIG. 2 is an explanatory diagram of a nozzle hole processing step using an excimer laser according to the embodiment.

FIG. 3 is an explanatory view of a nozzle plate adhering step of the embodiment.

FIG. 4 is a perspective view showing a conventional inkjet head.

FIG. 5 is a cross-sectional view of a conventional inkjet head.

FIG. 6 is an explanatory view of a manufacturing process of a conventional nozzle plate.

FIG. 7 is an explanatory diagram of a conventional nozzle plate bonding process.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 Head 4 Ink Channel 50 Nozzle Hole 59 Plate 60 Nozzle Plate 64 Excimer Laser Beam 104 Plating Layer as Mask

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. An ink jet system comprising: a main body having a plurality of ink flow paths formed therein; and a nozzle plate fixed to the main body and having a plurality of nozzle holes communicating with one ends of the plurality of ink flow paths. A method of manufacturing a nozzle plate for a head, comprising a step of closely forming a high energy ray blocking mask on a region of a plate excluding a region where a nozzle hole is to be formed, and a high energy on the plate on which the mask is formed. A step of irradiating a line, and a method of manufacturing a nozzle plate.