JPH08104021A - Production of electrode - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: To obtain an aperture electrode having high printing characteristics without causing an adjacent short-circuit by a first process forming a lower hole to an insulating substrate having a conductor part arranged thereon and a second process applying hole processing to the lower hole. CONSTITUTION: A material is constituted of an insulating sheet 2 and a conductive part inclusive of a control electrode 4 and the patterning of a resist is applied to this material. The material having the resist formed thereon is treated in an etching process to form an electrode pattern on the insulating sheet 2 and a slide coat layer 7 is formed on the surface on the side opposite to the pattern of the sheet 2. Hole processing is applied to the material having the pattern formed thereon by excimer laser but, at this time, a short-circuit is generated between adjacent control electrodes 4 by a deposit or the electric field controllability in an aperture is deteriorated. Then, a free grindstone is used to perform processing. By this method, the deposit produced at the time of excimer laser processing can be removed.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a method of manufacturing a recording electrode used in an image forming apparatus which can be used in a copying machine, a printer, a plotter, a facsimile and the like.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, as one of image forming apparatuses, an electrode having a plurality of openings (hereinafter referred to as apertures) is used, and a voltage is applied to the electrode based on image data. U.S. Pat. No. 3,689,935 discloses controlling toner particles so that they can pass through the aperture and forming an image on a support by the toner particles that have passed.

This image forming apparatus comprises a flat plate made of an insulating material, a continuous reference electrode formed on one surface of the flat plate, and a plurality of control electrodes insulated from each other formed on the other surface. , An aperture electrode body having at least one row of apertures formed through each of the control electrodes, and a means for selectively applying a potential between the reference electrode and the control electrode. A means for supplying charged toner particles so that the flow of toner particles passing through the aperture is modulated by an electric potential, and a means for positioning the support in the particle flow path so that the support and the aperture electrode body can move relative to each other. It consists of and.

Also, for example, US Pat. No. 4,743,926.
Nos. 4,755,837, 4,780,733, and 4,847,796 disclose an image forming apparatus in which an aperture electrode body is arranged with a control electrode on the support side and a reference electrode on the toner supply side. There is.

In contrast, US Pat. No. 4,912,489
In the specification of the above U.S. Pat. No. 5,967,967, the voltage applied to the control electrode when the aperture electrode body is off is disclosed by disposing the aperture electrode body with the reference electrode on the support side and the control electrode on the toner supply side. It is described that it can be suppressed to about 1/4 as compared with the image forming apparatus.

Here, the "off" means a time when the toner particles are not attached to the support, that is, a time when a blank portion of an image is formed, and conversely, "on" means that the support is on the support. It means a time point when a toner image is formed on.

[0007]

However, in the aperture electrode body used in the conventional image forming apparatus as described above, a pattern of a copper film is formed on an insulating sheet of polyimide or the like, and then the aperture electrode is formed by an excimer laser. I was drilling. Since this drilling process using an excimer laser utilizes ablation, a very clean hole can be formed.

On the other hand, however, modified materials such as polyimide and sliding film adhere to the upper part of the aperture and the wall surface due to ablation by the excimer laser, causing short circuit between adjacent parts and discharge. That is, at the time of excimer processing, the chemical bond of a polymer is broken by a photochemical reaction, and scattered fragments are attached, or thermal processing causes copper and additives to be vaporized and attached.

As a countermeasure against this, the present inventor has tried various methods. As a first method, strong ultrasonic cleaning was performed with an organic solvent such as trichlene or acetone. However, with this method, it was practically impossible to sufficiently remove the deposits which were a mixture of the respective materials. Further, by violently washing, there was a problem that the copper wire was peeled off from the polyimide of the base material, and it could not be applied.

As a second method, plasma etching was performed. This method can surely remove the adhered matter, but on the other hand, the surface of the resin film is modified by plasma, which causes problems such as toner adhesion.

Therefore, none of the methods has been able to realize the removal of foreign matters in the holes and the adverse effect on printing.

The present invention has been made to solve the above-mentioned problems, and an object thereof is to provide an aperture electrode having good printing characteristics without causing an adjacent short circuit or the like.

[0013]

In order to achieve this object, the electrode manufacturing method of the present invention comprises a first step and a second step. In the first step, a prepared hole is formed in the insulating substrate on which the conductive wire portion is arranged. The second step is
A hole is formed in the prepared hole by using loose abrasive grains.

[0014]

In the method of manufacturing the electrode of the present invention having the above-mentioned structure, the holes are first formed by the excimer laser in the first step. Then, in the second step, the hole is processed by sandblasting, which is free abrasive grain processing.
As a result, it is possible to remove the metamorphosis and the like generated by the excimer laser processing without degrading the polyimide layer.

[0015]

An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing an outline of an image forming apparatus using the electrodes of the present invention. A gap of 1 mm is provided above an aperture electrode body 1 as a toner flow control means.
A cylindrical back electrode roller 22 is rotatably arranged on a chassis (not shown), and is configured to be able to convey the support body 20 inserted into the gap. Further, a toner supply device 10 is arranged below the aperture electrode body 1 along the longitudinal direction of the aperture electrode body 1, and further, a support body conveyed by the back electrode roller 22. A fixing device 26 is disposed at the destination of the movement of 20.

Next, the respective components will be described in detail. In the toner supply device 10, the toner case 11 also serving as the housing of the entire device, the toner 16 housed in the toner case 11, and the supply roller 12 are provided. And a toner carrying roller 14 and a toner layer regulating blade 18. Here, the toner carrying roller 1
Reference numeral 4 is for carrying the toner 16 and carrying it toward the aperture electrode body 1, and the supply roller 12 is for supplying the toner 16 to the toner carrying roller 14.

The supply roller 12 and the toner carrying roller 14 are rotatably supported by the toner case 11 in the direction of the arrow shown in FIG. Further, the toner layer regulating blade 18
Is for adjusting the amount of the toner 16 carried on the toner carrying roller 14 to be uniform on the roller surface and for uniformly charging the toner 16, and is pressed against the toner carrying roller 14. .

As shown in FIG. 2, the aperture electrode body 1 has a 25 μm thick insulating sheet 2 made of polyimide and having a diameter of 1 μm.
A plurality of apertures 6 of 00 μm are formed in one row, and a control electrode 4 of 1 μm thickness is formed on the upper surface for each aperture 6. As shown in FIG. 1, the aperture electrode body 1 is pressed against the toner carrying roller 14 at the aperture position of the insulating sheet 2 with the control electrode 4 facing the support body 20 side.

Here, the positional relationship between the aperture 6 of the aperture electrode body 1 and the toner carrying roller 14 will be described in detail. As shown in FIG. 3, each center line 30 of each aperture 6 has a toner carrying roller 14. It is arranged so as to pass through the uppermost portion of the peripheral surface of and the central shaft 32 of the toner carrying roller 14. According to this, each aperture 6
Based on the uppermost part of the peripheral surface of the toner carrying roller 14,
By arranging them evenly on the left and right, the distribution of the toner 16 passing through each aperture 6 can be made uniform over the entire area of the aperture. In addition, the wall surface of the aperture 6 and the toner 16
Since the flying direction of the toner is parallel to the flying direction of the toner, it is possible to stably fly the toner.

Further, the aperture electrode body 1 itself has an aperture 6 with respect to the toner carrying roller 14 as shown in FIG.
It is pressed so that it bends to the left and right about the same angle. As a result, the contact area between the aperture electrode body 1 and the toner carrying roller 14 can be increased, and the lower periphery of the aperture 6 can be pressed uniformly to the left and right, so that uneven toner concentration is minimized. Can be suppressed.

A control voltage applying circuit 8 is connected between the control electrode 4 and the toner carrying roller 14.
The control voltage application circuit 8 is configured to apply a voltage of 0 V or +50 V to the control electrode 4 based on the image signal.

Further, a DC power supply 24 is connected between the back electrode roller 22 and the toner carrying roller 14.
A voltage of 1 kV can be applied.

Next, the structure of the manufacturing method of the aperture electrode body, which is the main part of the present invention, will be described with reference to FIGS. 4 to 6 are a top view and an AA ′ cross-sectional view in the vicinity of the aperture showing the respective steps of the manufacturing method of the present invention. 4A and 4B are a top view and a cross-sectional view at the time of forming a circuit pattern of the aperture electrode of the present invention. The material is composed of an insulating sheet 2 and a conductive portion including the control electrode 4,
Of the materials described above, resin films such as polyimide and polyester are often used as the insulating sheet. The conductor portion has no problem as long as it is a conductor film, and various metal materials such as chromium, tungsten, and aluminum can be used as the material of the conductor portion. In the present invention, a commonly used meta-royal film (manufactured by Toyo Metalizing)
The process will be described with reference to, but this material is composed of a polyimide substrate having a thickness of 25 μm and copper of 8 μm formed by a plating method.

Resist patterning is performed on this material. The material is coated with a photosensitive resist over the entire surface by spin coating or dipping, and then exposed to ultraviolet light through an exposure mask corresponding to the electrode pattern. After that, when the excess resist is removed with a stripping solution, a resist pattern corresponding to the electrode pattern is formed.

The material on which the resist pattern is formed is processed in an etching process. In the etching, the copper film having no resist film can be oxidized and corroded with an etching solution such as ferric chloride to leave the copper film in a resist pattern. In this way, the electrode pattern is formed on the insulating sheet. Further, the sliding surface coat layer 7 is formed on the surface opposite to the pattern. The sliding surface coating layer 7 is formed by adding additives such as carbon and silica to a binder.

The material with the pattern formed is first subjected to drilling with an excimer laser. Excimer laser
It is a strong ultraviolet light that gives a photochemical reaction to polymer materials,
It becomes possible to perform ablation processing. Theoretically, the polymer can be entirely blown off by ablation, but the deposit 5 is attached to the wall surface of the aperture. This deposit is an impurity of the insulating sheet,
It seems that the additive of the sliding coat layer is the cause. Due to such deposits, a short circuit may occur between adjacent control electrodes, or the electric field controllability within the aperture may deteriorate.

Next, the removal processing step which is the second step will be described. FIG. 6 shows a removal processing step. The removal processing step is performed using processing using loose abrasive grains. As a processing method using free abrasive grains, there are sandblasting, wet blasting, lapping, polishing, etc., but sandblasting is preferable from the viewpoint of processing efficiency and cost. As an example of the processing conditions for sandblasting, alumina abrasive grain No. 1200 was used, and the injection pressure was 3
Good results were obtained when processed in kg / square meter. If the size of the abrasive grains is large, it cannot pass through the aperture, so it is desirable that the size of the grains is as small as possible. By such processing, the deposits generated during the excimer laser processing can be removed.

According to this sandblasting method,
Not only is it possible to completely remove the deposits on the inner wall surface of the aperture and the upper surface of the aperture, but there is no particular change in the physical properties of the surface. Therefore, at the time of recording, which will be described later, toner is not attached and good printing is possible. Further, since each part of the aperture electrode is not damaged by the removal processing step, no problem occurs in manufacturing.

Next, the operation of the image forming apparatus configured as described above will be briefly described.

First, by rotating the toner carrying roller 14 and the supply roller 12 in the direction of the arrow shown in FIG. 1, the toner 16 sent from the supply roller 12 is rubbed against the toner carrying roller 14 to be negatively charged. The toner is carried on the toner carrying roller 14. Toner 1 carried
The layer 6 is thinned by the layer regulation blade 18 and charged, and then is conveyed toward the aperture electrode body 1 by the rotation of the toner carrying roller 14. Then, the toner on the toner carrying roller 14 is supplied under the aperture 6 while being rubbed by the insulating sheet 2 of the aperture electrode body 1.

Here, in accordance with the image signal, the control voltage applying circuit 8 adds + to the control electrode 4 corresponding to the image portion.
A voltage of 50V is applied. As a result, an electric force line from the control electrode 4 toward the toner carrying roller 14 is formed in the vicinity of the aperture 6 corresponding to the image portion due to the potential difference between the control electrode 4 and the toner carrying roller 14. As a result, the negatively charged toner receives an electrostatic force in the direction of higher electric potential, passes through the aperture 6 from the toner carrying roller 14, and is drawn out to the control electrode 4 side. The extracted toner 16 further flies toward the support body 20 due to the electric field formed between the support body 20 and the aperture electrode body 1 by the voltage applied to the back electrode 22, and on the support body 20. To form pixels.

A voltage of 0V is applied from the control voltage applying circuit 8 to the control electrode 4 corresponding to the non-image portion.
As a result, since no electric field is formed between the toner carrying roller 14 and the control electrode 4, the toner carrying roller 1
The toner 16 on 4 does not pass through the aperture 6 because it is not subjected to electrostatic force.

Further, the support 20 is fed by one pixel in the direction perpendicular to the aperture row while the toner 16 forms one row of pixels on the surface thereof. Then, the toner image is formed on the entire surface of the support 20 by repeating the above process. Then, the formed toner image is fixed on the support 20 by the fixing device 26.

In such a recording process, since there is no foreign matter in the vicinity of the aperture, a good printing can be stably performed without causing a problem such as a short circuit.

The present invention is not limited to the embodiments described in detail above, and various modifications can be made without departing from the spirit of the invention.

For example, in the above embodiment, the first machining and the second machining are performed in the same direction, but the second machining may be performed in the opposite direction to the first machining.

[0038]

As is apparent from the above description, in the method of manufacturing the electrode of the present invention having the above structure, the holes are first formed by the excimer laser in the first step.
Then, in the second step, the hole is processed by sandblasting, which is free abrasive grain processing. As a result, it is possible to remove the metamorphosis and the like generated by the excimer laser processing without degrading the polyimide layer.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing an embodiment embodying the configuration of an image forming apparatus of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a perspective view illustrating a configuration of an aperture electrode body used in the image forming apparatus of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a diagram schematically showing a configuration of an aperture electrode body and a toner carrying roller used in the image forming apparatus of the present invention.

4A and 4B are a top view and a cross-sectional view at the time of etching finish of the electrode manufacturing method of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a top view and a cross-sectional view at the end of the first processing of the manufacturing method.

FIG. 6 is a top view and a cross-sectional view at the end of the second processing of the manufacturing method.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 Aperture Electrode 2 Insulating Sheet 4 Control Electrode 5 Adhesion 6 Aperture 8 Control Voltage Application Circuit 14 Toner Carrier Roller 22 Back Electrode Roller 24 DC Power Supply

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A first step of forming a prepared hole in an insulating substrate on which a conductive wire portion is arranged, and a second step of making a hole in the prepared hole with loose abrasive grains. A method of manufacturing an electrode, comprising: