JPH0640589Y2 - Vacuum deposition equipment - Google Patents

Description

[Detailed description of the device] [Industrial applications]

The present invention relates to a vacuum vapor deposition apparatus, and more particularly, to a vacuum vapor deposition apparatus capable of maintaining a high vacuum state in a necessary portion of the apparatus in which the chamber is divided into two chambers.

[Prior art]

Recently, vacuum vapor deposition has been widely used for heating and evaporating a metal or the like under reduced pressure to deposit it on a substrate. In order to obtain a vacuum state, strictly speaking, a reduced pressure state, it is a general method to shut off the chamber from the outside air and to exhaust the air in the chamber with a vacuum pump to obtain a reduced pressure state. Whether or not a high degree of vacuum can be obtained depends on the performance of the vacuum pump and the technology for shutting off the chamber from the outside air. In order to shut off the air from the inside of the chamber, a so-called packing, which is usually made of rubber or other elastic material in the shape of a plate or a round bar, is placed in the main part of the chamber and fixed by screws, or the inside of the chamber is depressurized. Therefore, the airtightness is maintained by using the pressure difference between the inside and outside of the chamber and pressing the chamber and the packing with a strong force. By the way, in vacuum deposition work, a high degree of vacuum is required in the step of heating and evaporating a metal or the like to deposit it on a base material, but when continuously depositing a long strip-shaped base material, an apparatus is required. However, it is technically difficult to maintain a high vacuum in the entire apparatus, and there is little merit in cost. Therefore, the chamber is divided into two chambers, the chamber for accommodating the strip-shaped substrate is made to have a low to medium vacuum degree, and only the chamber for depositing a metal or the like on the substrate is made to have a high vacuum. The partition wall that divides the chamber into two chambers is detachably inserted in the middle of the upper and lower parts of the chamber, and the chamber is mounted on the wall surface by providing a plate-shaped partition wall receiver, and the hard rubber on the partition wall receiver. Airtightness was secured by arranging plate-shaped packing such as.

[Problems to be solved by the device]

However, in the method of disposing the packing on the plate-shaped partition wall receiver and installing the partition wall on this, the partition wall cannot be inserted unless there is a gap between the packing and the partition wall. When the inside of the chamber is decompressed from the slight distance between the lower surface of the partition wall and the packing, air leaks and a high degree of vacuum is required for the deposition work. There was a problem that I could not do it. There is also a method in which the gap and the gap between the packings are eliminated and the members are forced in, but there is a problem that the packings are immediately damaged and the airtightness is rather deteriorated. Incidentally, the reason why the partition wall is detachably attached to the chamber is that it is inconvenient to fix the partition wall when adjusting the material to be vapor-deposited, the process drum, the vapor deposition equipment, etc. installed in the chamber.

[Means for Solving the Problems]

The present invention has been made in consideration of the above-mentioned problems of the prior art. In the chamber used under reduced pressure, a chamber for loading and unloading a strip-shaped substrate by a partition wall, and heating a metal or the like on the strip-shaped substrate, In a vacuum vapor deposition apparatus which is divided into two chambers, a vapor deposition chamber for evaporation and deposition, a chamber internal pressure at the time of operating the device under normal pressure between the barrier rib and a partition attachment portion formed along the chamber inner wall. The vacuum vapor deposition apparatus is characterized in that a hollow self-expanding packing made of an elastic body is inserted, which is hermetically sealed with a gas at a pressure higher than the pressure and which can be loosely inserted under normal pressure.

[Action]

The hollow self-expanding packing made of an elastic material, which is inserted between the partition wall attachment part and the partition wall, expands when the ambient air pressure decreases and contracts when it rises, so the pressure inside the chamber decreases when the device is mounted. When the inside of the chamber becomes atmospheric pressure due to the expansion of the partition wall to close the gap between the partition wall and the partition wall attachment part, and the airtightness is increased, and when the chamber lid is opened, the partition wall and the partition wall are attached and contracted. There is a gap between the part and
The work of attaching and detaching the partition becomes easy. Next, the present invention will be specifically described with reference to the drawings.

【Example】

In FIG. 1, 1 is an example of a self-expanding packing used in the present invention, which is a hollow portion 3 of a synthetic rubber 2 which is an elastic member.
It is filled with air under atmospheric pressure to 1.1 atm and sealed. FIG. 2 is a conceptual diagram of a chamber 4 of a vacuum vapor deposition apparatus to which the self-expanding packing 1 is applied. The chamber 4 has a cylindrical longitudinal section, and the chamber 4 has two chambers, A and B, above and below. In the upper chamber A, a strip-shaped substrate 6 to be vapor-deposited is wound around a winding roll 7 and a winding roll 7 '. In the lower chamber B, there is a process drum 8, which receives the strip-shaped base material 6 emitted from the winding roll 7 and sends it to the winding roll 7 ',
The vacuum deposition is performed underneath. The partition wall 5 is inserted from above by a guide roller (not shown) on a plate-shaped partition wall receiver 9 having the self-expanding packing 1 shown in FIG. Can be installed. Between the lower surface of the partition wall 5 and the upper surface of the self-expanding packing 1, there is no hindrance to the insertion / removal of the partition wall 5 when the pressure inside the chamber becomes 1 atmosphere by opening a lid (not shown) of the chamber 4. For example, there is a gap of about 2 mm. The distance between the lower surface of the partition wall 5 and the upper surface of the self-expanding packing 1 can be adjusted by providing a guide roller or the like used for attaching and detaching the partition wall 5 so as to be vertically movable. Each of the chambers A and B in the chamber 4 is connected to a vacuum pump (not shown) so that air is discharged and a depressurized state can be obtained. Since the inside of the chamber 4 is initially at 1 atmosphere, there is a space between the lower surface of the partition wall 5 and the self-expanding packing 1 as described above, but as the air pressure inside the chamber 4 decreases, the self-expanding packing 1 is synthesized. The inner pressure becomes higher than the outer pressure of the rubber 1, the synthetic rubber 2 expands, the entire packing expands, and the gap with the partition wall 5 is completely closed. As a result, A,
Both chambers B are sealed along the inner wall of the chamber at a long boundary, so that airtightness is maintained between them. In the chamber where the volume of A chamber is 6m ³ and the volume of B chamber is 4m ³ ,
Evacuating room A with a vacuum pump of 223 m ³ / min and room B with a capacity of 32,000 l / sec, room A was 1 x 10 in only 25 minutes.
^-2 Torr, chamber B reached a vacuum of 5 × 10 ^-4 Torr. This was 10 minutes shorter than when using the conventional packing. As the attachment portion of the partition wall 5, in addition to that shown in FIG.
As shown in FIG. 4, the self-expanding packing 1 may be arranged above and below the U-shaped partition wall receiver 9 ', and the partition wall 5 may be attached or detached by a guide roller or the like between them.
In this case, under normal pressure, there is a gap between the partition wall 5 and the self-expanding packing 1 as shown in FIG. 3, but under reduced pressure the expanded packing 1 as shown in FIG. The space is closed.

[Effect of device]

As described above, in the vacuum deposition apparatus of the present invention, the gas is sealed between the partition wall and the partition wall attachment portion formed along the inner wall of the chamber at a pressure exceeding the chamber pressure when the apparatus is driven under normal pressure. And since a hollow self-expanding packing made of an elastic body that can be loosely inserted under normal pressure is inserted, it is extremely easy to attach and detach the partition wall under normal pressure of 1 atm because there is a sufficient space between the partition wall and the packing. When the apparatus is driven, the packing expands as the atmosphere is decompressed, and the gap between the partition and the packing that was originally opened is completely closed, so that high airtightness is ensured. Therefore, according to the present invention, in order to facilitate the attachment / detachment of the partition wall, a space is provided between the partition wall and the packing to impair the airtightness of both chambers A and B in the chamber, or to increase the airtightness of the partition wall and the packing. Since the space between the two is reduced, it is possible to solve all the problems of the prior art in which the packing is damaged when the partition is attached or detached and the airtightness is impaired.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a perspective view showing a cross section of a part of the self-expanding packing used in the present invention, and FIG. 2 is a vertical cross-sectional view showing an example of a chamber of a vacuum vapor deposition apparatus of the present invention, FIGS. Shows another example of the partition mounting portion. 1 ... Self-expanding packing 2 ... Rubber 3 ... Hollow part 4 ... Chamber 5 ... Partition 6 ... Strip-shaped substrate 7 ... Rewind roll 7 '... Winding roll 8 ... Process drum 9,9 ′ …… Partition wall receiver

Claims (1)

[Scope of utility model registration request] 1. A chamber used under reduced pressure is divided into two chambers, a chamber for loading and unloading a strip-shaped substrate by a partition wall and a vapor deposition chamber for heating and evaporating and depositing metal or the like on the strip-shaped substrate. In the vacuum vapor deposition apparatus described above, the gas is sealed between the partition wall and the partition wall attachment portion formed along the inner wall of the chamber at a pressure higher than the pressure in the chamber when the apparatus is driven under normal pressure, and the gas does not move under normal pressure. A vacuum vapor deposition apparatus having a hollow self-expanding packing made of an insertable elastic body.