JPH08230199A - Manufactur of ink jet device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: To prevent occurrence of flowing of an adhesive into a nozzle. CONSTITUTION: After a cover 6 made of a piezoelectric ceramic is connected to a piezoelectric ceramic plate 2 having a groove formed thereon so as to form an ink chamber 4, an adhesive 70 is transferred to end faces of the piezoelectric ceramic plate 2 and the cover 6 so as to adhere a plate 59 to be worked into a nozzle plate. An etching liquid of the plate 59 is led into the ink chamber 4 so as to act on the plate 59, so that the plate 59 is etched into a shape peculiar to etching i.e., into a tapered shape wherein the cross section decreases to the proceeding direction of the etching liquid by using the shape of the ink chamber 4 as a mask. As a result, steps to be generated in a conventional way do not generate at the joint of the ink chamber 4 and the nozzle plate, so that a smooth nozzle is manufactured from the ink chamber 4.

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 an ink jet device having a substrate having nozzles for ejecting ink and a head member provided with an ink chamber communicating with the nozzles and filled with ink. It is about the method.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, piezoelectric ink jet heads have been proposed. These heads have a plurality of ink chambers filled with ink, and by changing the volume of the ink chamber by the dimensional displacement of the piezoelectric actuator, the ink in the ink chamber is ejected from the nozzles when the volume decreases, and the volume increases. The ink is sometimes introduced into the ink chamber. Then, by ejecting ink from the ink chamber at a predetermined position, it is possible to form a desired character or image.

Such an ink jet head will be specifically described with reference to a perspective view of the ink jet head 1 shown in FIG. 6 and a partial sectional view of the ink jet 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 and the lid 6, a large number of parallels having a space therebetween in the lateral direction in FIG. The ink chamber 4 is configured. The ink chamber 4 has a rectangular cross section that is long and narrow, and the side wall 5 extends over the entire length of the ink chamber 4 and can be deformed perpendicularly to the central axis of the ink chamber 4. Therefore, the deformation of the side wall 5 changes the volume of the ink chamber 4 and changes the ink pressure in the ink chamber 4. A drive electrode 7 for applying a drive electric field is formed in a region of the lower half (or upper half) of the surface of the side wall 5, and the surface of the drive electrode 7 serves to insulate the ink from the drive electrode 7. Insulated. At one end of the piezoelectric ceramics plate 2 and the lid 6, a nozzle plate 60 having a nozzle 50 communicating with one end of each ink chamber 4 is provided with an adhesive 70.
Has been fixed by.

In this ink jet head 1, FIG.
For example, when the ink chamber 4B is selected according to the predetermined print data as shown in FIG. 5, the driving electric field 10 is applied between the driving electrodes 7C and 7D and the driving electrodes 7E and 7F by the driving device (not shown). 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 V shape toward the outside of the ink chamber 4B due to the piezoelectric thickness sliding effect. At this time, ink is supplied into the ink chamber 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 chamber 4B becomes a positive pressure, and ink droplets are ejected from the nozzle 50 corresponding to the ink chamber 4B.

Here, as a conventional method of manufacturing the nozzle 50, for example, a method disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 3-101960 is known.

As shown in FIG. 8, an excimer laser device 61 is provided.
The oscillated laser beam 64 is applied to the copper mask 62 via the optical lens system 66. 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 to form the nozzle 50 having a predetermined shape at a predetermined position on the plate 59. In this way, the plate 5
A nozzle plate 60 is formed by forming a large number of nozzles 50 having a predetermined shape at predetermined positions on the plate 9. For the plate 59, a material that does not deteriorate with respect to the solvent in the ink component, for example, a polyimide resin is used.

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

[0009]

In the conventional manufacturing method as described above, when the nozzle plate 60 is bonded, the bonding temperature and the pressurizing pressure must be accurately controlled so that the adhesive agent 70 can be used.
There is a problem that the nozzle 50 is hung down or flows into the nozzle 50 to block the nozzle 50, or the shape of the nozzle 50 is narrowed to affect the injection, and in the worst case, the injection becomes impossible.

The present invention has been made to solve the above-mentioned problems, and an object of the present invention is to provide a method of manufacturing an ink jet device in which the adhesive does not flow into the nozzle.

[0011]

In order to achieve this object, according to a first aspect of the present invention, a substrate on which a nozzle for ejecting ink is formed, and an ink which communicates with the nozzle and is filled with the ink. In a method for manufacturing an inkjet device having a head member having a chamber, a step of adhering the substrate on which the nozzle is not formed to a head member on which the ink chamber is formed, a liquid capable of etching the substrate, or Forming a nozzle on the substrate by introducing gas into the ink chamber.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, the adhesive is provided on a surface of the head member to which the substrate is attached.

According to a third aspect of the present invention, the adhesive is provided on a surface of the substrate that is adhered to the head member, and is not provided on a portion corresponding to the ink chamber.

According to a fourth aspect of the present invention, the shape of the portion of the substrate where the adhesive is not provided is different from the shape of the ink chamber.

[0015]

In the method for manufacturing an ink jet device of the present invention having the above structure, first, the substrate on which the nozzle is not formed is adhered to the head member on which the ink chamber is formed, and then the substrate is formed. An etchable liquid or gas is introduced into the ink chamber to form the nozzle on the substrate.

[0016]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment of the present invention will be described in detail below with reference to the drawings. For the sake of convenience, the same parts and equivalent parts as those of the conventional example will be described with the same reference numerals.

As shown in FIG. 1, a piezoelectric ceramic plate 2 having a groove formed therein is joined to a cover 6 made of piezoelectric ceramic to form an ink chamber 4, and then an adhesive 70 is applied to the piezoelectric ceramic plate 2 and the cover 6. It is transferred to the end face and the plate 59 is adhered. In this state, the drive electrode 7 (FIG. 7) has already been formed on the side wall 5 (FIG. 7) as in the conventional case. The head member in the claims is composed of the piezoelectric ceramic plate 2 and the lid 6, and the substrate is the nozzle plate 60 (plate 59).

In this embodiment, the lid 6 is made of piezoelectric ceramics made of the same material as that of the piezoelectric ceramics plate 2. However, any substrate can be used as long as it is electrically insulating and has rigidity equal to or higher than that of the piezoelectric ceramics plate 2. Such a substrate may be used, and for example, another ceramic substrate such as a glass substrate or an alumina substrate can be used. Further, the plate 59 is preferably made of a material having corrosion resistance to the ink components used, and a special gas, that is, a material which is generally etched by plasma etching is required. Examples of plate materials that satisfy these conditions include all resin materials such as polyimide resin, polysulfone resin, and polyether sulfone resin, but not limited to resins, metal plates may be used. In this example, the above-mentioned polyimide resin was used. Further, the medium for etching the plate 59 does not have to be gas, and may be an etching solution.

Next, an etching gas for etching the plate 59 is introduced into the ink chamber 4 to act on the plate 59, so that the plate 59 as shown in FIG.
Using the shape of the ink chamber 4 as a mask, etching is performed in a shape peculiar to etching, that is, a tapered shape whose cross section decreases with respect to the direction of travel of the etching gas. The shape of the taper such as the inclination of the taper can be controlled by the type of etching gas, the operating temperature during etching, and the like, and the uniform nozzle 50 can be manufactured with high accuracy.

In this embodiment, CF ₄ is used to
Plasma etching processing was performed at ℃.

In this embodiment, since the ink chamber 4 is used as it is as a mask, there is no step like the conventional one at the joint between the ink chamber 4 and the nozzle plate 60, and the smooth nozzle 50 from the ink chamber 4 is formed. Is created. Further, since it is not necessary to align the nozzle 50 with the ink chamber 4, the bonding process can be performed more easily than before. When the ink chamber 4 is used as a mask as in this embodiment, the nozzle 50 having no step can be obtained.
The shape of the ejection side of is similar to the cross-sectional shape of the ink chamber 4. As shown in FIG. 2B, in the present embodiment, since the cross-sectional shape of the ink chamber 4 is rectangular, the ejection side shape of the nozzle 50 is close to an elliptical shape, but the ink ejection test is actually performed. As a result, good injection characteristics without any problems were obtained as compared with the circular nozzle.

Next, an embodiment in which the ejection side shape of the nozzle 50 described above is circular will be described. As shown in FIG. 3, after applying the adhesive agent 70 to the plate 59 or laminating the film adhesive agent, a circular shape such that the adhesive layer portion is in contact with the ink chamber 4 at intervals of the ink chamber 4 by the excimer laser. Then, the window 80 is manufactured. In this example, the film adhesive was used for processing by an excimer laser. However, the film adhesive can be processed before lamination, and the same shape can be processed by press working or the like. . Further, in the present description, the processing of removing only the adhesive layer is performed, but after laminating, not only the adhesive layer but also the plate 59 may be removed to some extent.

The plate 59 with the adhesive 70 thus produced is joined to the ink chamber 4 as shown in FIG.
Then, by introducing an etching gas into the ink chamber 4 in the same manner as described above, as shown in FIGS. 5 (a) and 5 (b),
The adhesive 70 is not a shape imitating the cross-sectional shape of the ink chamber 4.
The nozzle 50 having a shape imitating the circular shape of the window 80 is manufactured. According to this method, it is not possible to manufacture the nozzle 50 having no level difference from the ink chamber 4 as in the above-described embodiment. However, as shown in FIG.
Since the portion of 0 is continuously connected to the nozzle 50 from the ink chamber 4, a vertical step is not formed. When an ink jetting experiment was carried out with the ink jet head thus manufactured, it was confirmed that jetting characteristics comparable to those of the above-described examples were obtained and that there were no bubble traps.

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, instead of adhering the plate 59 to the substrate forming the ink chamber 4, the plate 59 itself may be made of a material such as an adhesive capable of forming and joining.

Further, in the present embodiment, the present invention is used for the ink jet head of the type that ejects ink by the deformation of the piezoelectric element, but the present invention may be used for a well-known thermal jet type ink jet head.

Further, in this embodiment, the nozzle 50 is formed by using the polyimide resin for the plate 59 and CF ₄ as the etching gas, but silicon is used for the plate 59 and the ink chamber 4 has the 110 surface of silicon. The nozzle 50 may be formed so that the nozzle 50 is adhered to the side and KOH is used as an etching solution.

[0027]

As is apparent from the above description, according to the present invention, first, the substrate before the nozzle is formed is bonded to the head member in which the ink chamber is formed,
Next, since a liquid or a gas capable of etching the substrate is introduced into the ink chamber to form the nozzle, an ink jet which can be satisfactorily ejected without the conventional inflow of the adhesive into the nozzle. The device can be manufactured.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a cross-sectional view showing a part of an inkjet head during a manufacturing process according to an embodiment of the present invention.

2A and 2B are a sectional view and a front view showing a part of the ink jet head of the embodiment.

FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram showing another embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a cross-sectional view showing a part of an inkjet head during the manufacturing process of the other embodiment.

5A and 5B are a cross-sectional view and a front view showing a part of an ink jet head of another embodiment.

FIG. 6 is a perspective view showing a conventional inkjet head.

FIG. 7 is an explanatory diagram showing an operation of a conventional inkjet head.

FIG. 8 is an explanatory view showing a manufacturing process of a conventional nozzle plate.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 Inkjet Head 2 Piezoelectric Ceramics Plate 4 Ink Chamber 6 Lid 50 Nozzle 60 Nozzle Plate 70 Adhesive

Claims (4)

[Claims] 1. A method of manufacturing an inkjet device, comprising: a substrate on which a nozzle for ejecting ink is formed; and a head member that is in communication with the nozzle and has an ink chamber filled with ink. Adhering the unformed substrate to a head member in which the ink chamber is formed; and forming a nozzle in the substrate by introducing a liquid or gas capable of etching the substrate into the ink chamber And a method for manufacturing an inkjet device. 2. The adhesive is provided on a surface of the head member to which the substrate is adhered.
A method for manufacturing the inkjet device described. 3. The ink jet apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the adhesive is provided on a surface of the substrate that is adhered to the head member, and is not provided on a portion corresponding to the ink chamber. Production method. 4. The method according to claim 3, wherein the shape of the portion of the substrate where the adhesive is not provided is different from the shape of the ink chamber.