JPH08293259A - Method for forming gas-discharge display panel and its electrode - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: To provide high-definition, low-resistance-value, stable electrodes, to achieve cost reduction and excellent productivity, and to deal with large panels. CONSTITUTION: In a gas-discharge display panel wherein plural groups of electrodes are placed on the opposite surfaces of two substrates 1, 2, the electrodes 4, 8 on the surface of at least one of the substrates are formed from one or plural patterned sheets of metallic foil. Either the surface of the substrate is laminated with the metallic foil serving as the electrode material and is then patterned or the surface is laminated with previously patterned metallic foil. Since the resistivity value of the metal used specifies the electrode resistance, the panel that has a low electrode resistance value and is stable can be obtained. Not only drawbacks of conventional screen printing method and vacuum film-forming method are eliminated but also advantages of both methods are retained.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a structure of a gas discharge display panel which is a self-luminous type flat panel display and a method of forming electrodes thereof.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Gas discharge display panels are roughly classified into AC type and DC type. For example, FIG. 1 shows an example of the configuration of an AC type gas discharge display panel. As shown in FIG. 1, two substrates 1 and 2 made of glass or the like are arranged in parallel and opposite to each other. Both of them are held at a constant interval by a barrier rib 3 provided therebetween. A plurality of X electrodes 4 parallel to each other are pattern-formed on the back side of the substrate 1 which is a front plate, and a dielectric layer 5 is formed thereon, and a black matrix 6 is formed thereon.
Are patterned, and the protective layer 7 is formed thereon. In addition, a Y electrode 8 is patterned on the front surface side of the substrate 2 serving as a back plate, a dielectric layer 9 and a protective layer 10 are provided thereon, and a barrier rib 3 is formed on the protective layer 10. A phosphor 11 is provided on the wall surface of the barrier rib 3.

The one shown in FIG. 1 is of an opposed discharge type, in which an AC voltage is applied between the X electrode 4 on the front plate and the Y electrode 8 on the rear plate to form an electric field, so that discharge occurs in the cell. Is a structure for generating. In this case, since the alternating current is applied, the direction of the electric field changes according to the frequency. The ultraviolet rays generated by this discharge cause the phosphor 11 to emit light, and the observer visually recognizes the light transmitted through the front plate.

[0004]

As a method of forming electrodes in a gas discharge display panel as described above, a paste containing gold or nickel as a main component is formed into an electrode pattern by a thick film printing method typified by a screen printing method. A patterning method is generally adopted. However, according to this method, although there is an advantage that the electrode can be formed relatively easily, there is a disadvantage that the dimensions and thickness of the electrode vary due to manufacturing precision, and particularly when the panel is large, It was very difficult to form the electrode as designed due to the distortion of the screen plate. Further, it was difficult to form a fine electrode having a line width of 100 μm or less due to the size of the mesh of the screen plate and the processing accuracy of the dairy material.

As an alternative to screen printing, a metal film to be an electrode is formed on a panel substrate by a vacuum film forming method such as a vacuum evaporation method or a sputtering method, and then a resist layer to be an etching mask is patterned by a photolithography method. A method of forming an electrode by etching a metal film has also been proposed. However, in this method, although the processing accuracy of the electrode is good, the apparatus main body and its maintenance are expensive, and the productivity is poor.

The present invention has been made in view of the above problems, and an object of the present invention is to provide a high-definition, stable electrode having a low resistance value and a low cost for productivity. Another object of the present invention is to provide a gas discharge display panel which is also excellent and can be applied to a large-sized panel, and also to provide a method for forming the electrode thereof.

[0007]

In order to achieve the above object, a gas discharge display panel according to the present invention is a gas discharge display panel in which a plurality of electrodes are arranged on opposite surfaces of two substrates. , At least one of the electrodes on the substrate surface,
It is characterized by being formed of one or a plurality of patterned metal foils.

A method of forming an electrode according to the present invention is a method of forming an electrode on at least one substrate surface in the gas discharge display panel having the above structure, and the first method is a metal foil of an electrode material. Is bonded to the surface of the substrate, and then the metal foil is subjected to pattern processing.The second method is to pattern the metal foil of the electrode material, and then apply the patterned metal foil to the surface of the substrate. It is characterized by bonding on top. Then, a paste containing glass frit may be used as an adhesive to bond the metal foil or the patterned metal foil onto the substrate surface, or the metal foil or the anodic bonding method. A patterned metal foil may be adhered onto the substrate surface.

[0009]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below.

The structure of the gas discharge display panel according to the present invention is the same as that of the conventional one shown in FIG.
The difference is that the electrode 8 is formed of a patterned metal foil. Each component of the panel has the same function as that of the panel shown in FIG. 1 and operates in the same manner.

The first advantage of forming the electrode from the metal foil as described above is that the resistance value of the electrode is stable.
That is, since the metal foil is made of a pure metal, the electrode resistance is determined by the specific resistance value of the metal. On the contrary,
In the conductive paste for thick film printing, in addition to the conductor powder,
It contains an organic binder, an inorganic binder, a solvent, a surfactant, etc., and impurities such as the inorganic binder component remain in the film after baking. Therefore, the specific resistance value of the conductive film is sometimes 10 times or more that of pure metal, and the electrode resistance becomes high.

The second advantage of using the metal foil for the electrode is that the film can be easily formed. That is, a film can be formed by laminating a metal foil on the panel substrate. On the other hand, vacuum deposition methods such as vacuum evaporation method and sputtering method
The device body and its maintenance are expensive. In addition, it is not impossible to deal with large panels, but the scale of the equipment will become large and the production cost will not match. Other methods than the vacuum film forming method include a plating method and a thick film printing method of a conductive paste. However, since the metal film formed by either method contains impurities, the electric characteristics are inferior to those of pure metal.

Further, a method of forming electrodes in the gas discharge display panel according to the present invention will be described with reference to the process chart shown in FIG.

The substrate on which the electrodes are formed may be either the front plate or the back plate, but here, for convenience, the case where the electrodes are formed on the substrate 2 serving as the back plate will be described. The substrate 2 may be a flat or curved surface and is chemically stable, and a glass substrate, a ceramics substrate, a resin substrate, or the like can be used. In this example, a glass substrate was used, and cleaning and annealing treatments were performed before use.

First, as shown in FIG. 2A, a metal foil 21 was laminated on at least a region related to panel display on the substrate 2. This metal foil 21 is patterned in a later step to become the Y electrode 8. As a material for the metal foil 21, a metal having a high ductility and malleability is suitable, and copper, silver,
Examples include pure metals such as gold, platinum, tin, iron, nickel, and aluminum, and alloys based on these elements. Among them, silver, gold and nickel are preferable for the gas discharge display panel.

For adhesion of the substrate 2 and the metal foil 21, for example, when the substrate 2 is glass, the metal foil 21 is pressure-bonded to the substrate 2 and heated to a strain point (511 ° C.) or higher of the glass to form the metal. A method of adhering the foil 21 and the substrate 2 can be mentioned, but this method tends to cause insufficient adhesion due to insufficient adhesion. Therefore, the metal foil 21 was bonded onto the surface of the substrate 2 using a paste containing glass frit as an adhesive. in this case,
After coating the paste containing the glass frit on the substrate 2 by an appropriate method such as a spray method, a dip method, a roll coating method, or a screen printing method, the metal foil 21 may be adhered and the paste may be baked at a high temperature.

Alternatively, it is possible to bond the metal foil 21 to the substrate 2 by an anodic bonding method used for bonding a silicon wafer and a glass plate. To briefly describe the anodic bonding method, when the substrate 2 is a glass plate, as shown in FIG.
While heating to about 00 ° C., the metal foil 21 is used as the anode and the substrate 2.
Is used as a cathode and a voltage of 100 to 500 V is applied. Then, as shown in FIG. 4, Na ions in the substrate 2 diffuse due to the influence of the electric field, and N is generated near the interface with the metal foil 21 in the substrate 2.
The a-deficient layer 31 is formed. The voids from which the Na ions have been removed are negatively charged, and as a reaction thereof, the oxide layer 32 on the surface of the metal foil 21 is positively charged. Then, due to the electrostatic attraction that acts between these induced charges and the action of excessive heating, the substrate 2
And the metal foil 21 are bonded.

After adhering the metal foil 21 to the substrate 2, the metal foil 21 is patterned by a known method. In this embodiment,
As shown in FIG. 2B, the photosensitive resin 2 is formed on the metal foil 21.
After forming the second layer and patterning the photosensitive resin into the shape of the electrode by the usual photolithography method, the pattern shown in FIG.
As shown in, the metal foil 21 was chemically etched using the patterned photosensitive resin 22 as a mask material. When the material of the metal foil 21 is gold, etching is performed with an iodine / potassium iodide aqueous solution. Further, after the etching was completed, the photosensitive resin 22 was peeled off to obtain the desired Y electrode 8 as shown in FIG.

In the above embodiment, the metal foil 21 was first adhered to the substrate 2, and then the metal foil 21 was patterned to form the electrodes. However, the metal foil 21 was patterned into an electrode shape, It is also possible to bond the metal foil after this pattern processing to the substrate 2. In this case, the metal foil 21
The patterning process may be performed by an etching method, but the punching process is superior in mass productivity.

The following steps are similar to those of the prior art and will be described briefly. First, the dielectric layer 9 is formed so as to cover the Y electrode 8. For example, a dielectric paste containing a low melting point glass paste as a main component is applied by a screen printing method, and the paste is dried and baked to perform the dielectric. Form the layer 9. Next, the protective layer 10 is formed on the dielectric layer 9. For example, MgO is used as the material of the protective layer 10,
The protective layer 10 is formed by forming a film by a vapor deposition method or a sputtering method. Then, the barrier rib 3 is formed on the protective layer 10.
The barrier ribs 3 are formed by, for example, overprinting a low melting point glass paste by a screen printing method. Then, the phosphor 11 is formed on the wall surface of the barrier rib 3. For example, in the case of a color display panel, each color of red (R), green (G), and blue (B) is filled in the gap of the barrier rib 3 by a screen printing method, The phosphor 11 is formed by performing drying and baking.

On the other hand, the X electrode 4 is patterned on the substrate 1 which becomes the front plate, and the dielectric layer 5 is formed so as to cover the X electrode 4. The X electrode 4 may be formed by a screen printing method as in the conventional technique, but it is effective to form it by the method of the present invention. The material and forming method of the dielectric layer 5 are the same as those of the dielectric layer 9 described above. Further, the black matrix 6 is formed on the dielectric layer 9 so as to be orthogonal to the X electrodes 4. The black matrix 6 is formed so as to correspond to the barrier ribs 3 on the back plate. As the material of the black matrix 6, a metal film such as Cr or the paste used for the barrier rib 3 may be used. Further, although the protective layer 7 is formed so as to cover the black matrix 6, the material and the forming method may be the same as those of the protective layer 10.

The back plate and the front plate formed as described above are attached to each other and filled with gas to complete a gas discharge display panel.

In the embodiment described above, one example of the constitution of the AC type gas discharge display panel is taken up and the process of the electrode processing method is explained as the method of forming the Y electrode arranged on the back plate thereof. It is also applicable as a method of forming the X electrodes arranged on the front plate as described above. Further, it is needless to say that the present invention can be applied to the electrode processing of an AC type gas discharge display panel having a structure different from that of the above embodiment. For example, a pair of electrode groups (X electrodes and Y electrodes) arranged in parallel for display are formed on either the front plate or the back plate, and these electrode groups are not installed on the substrate. Even in the structure in which the address electrode is arranged so as to be orthogonal to the electrode group, either one or both of the above electrode group and address electrode may be formed by the method of the present invention. Further, in the gas discharge display panel provided with the trigger electrode for starting the discharge, the electrode forming method of the present invention can be applied as the method of forming the trigger electrode. Furthermore, even with a DC type gas discharge display panel,
Either or both of the anode and the cathode may be formed by the method of the present invention.

Further, the present invention can be applied not only to a gas discharge display panel having a structure utilizing phosphor light emission, but also to a panel for taking out the emission color of a gas discharge using Ne-based gas as a discharge gas as it is. .

[0025]

As described above, in the gas discharge display panel of the present invention, since the electrodes are formed by the patterned metal foil, the electrode resistance is uniquely determined by the specific resistance value of the metal. Therefore, it is possible to obtain a stable panel having a low electrode resistance value.

Conventionally, the electrodes of the gas discharge display panel were formed by screen printing or film formation by vacuum film formation and etching by photolithography, but in the former case, especially in the case of a large-sized panel, it is not suitable for manufacturing. However, the latter has good electrode processing accuracy, but the high cost and poor productivity due to the use of the vacuum film formation method. there were. On the other hand, in the present invention, when forming the electrode, the panel substrate is laminated with the metal foil of the electrode material for pattern processing, or the patterned metal foil is laminated, so that the device and the maintenance cost are reduced. Therefore, it is advantageous in terms of cost and excellent in productivity, and can be applied to the production of large-sized panels. Furthermore, by applying a well-known photolithography method to the processing of metal foil, it is possible to perform electrode processing with a large area and high dimensional accuracy, and to achieve high-precision electrode processing that cannot be achieved by conventional screen printing methods. It can be done in a small area and at low cost. Therefore, the electrode forming method of the present invention not only solves the drawbacks of the screen printing method and the vacuum film forming method, but also has the advantages of both.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a cross-sectional view showing a configuration example of an AC type gas discharge display panel.

FIG. 2 is a process chart showing a method for forming electrodes.

FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram showing a state in which a metal foil is bonded onto a substrate surface by an anodic bonding method.

FIG. 4 is a diagram for explaining the principle of the anodic bonding method.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1, 2 substrate 3 barrier rib 4 X electrode 5 dielectric layer 6 black matrix 7 protective layer 8 Y electrode 9 dielectric layer 10 protective layer 11 phosphor 21 metal foil 22 photosensitive resin 31 Na deficient layer 32 oxide layer

 ─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continued Front Page (72) Inventor Sakurako Hatori 1-1-1, Ichigaya-Kagacho, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo Dai Nippon Printing Co., Ltd. (72) Inventor Masanori Fukuda 1-chome, Ichigaya-Kagacho, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo No. 1 Dai Nippon Printing Co., Ltd.

Claims (7)

[Claims] 1. A gas discharge display panel in which a plurality of electrodes are arranged on opposite surfaces of two substrates, and at least one of the electrodes on the surface of the substrate has one or a plurality of patterned metal foils. A gas discharge display panel characterized by being formed of. 2. A method for forming an electrode on at least one substrate surface in a gas discharge display panel, wherein a plurality of electrodes are arranged on opposite surfaces of two substrates, wherein a metal foil of an electrode material is used as the substrate. A method for forming an electrode, comprising patterning the metal foil after adhering to the surface. 3. The method for forming an electrode according to claim 2, wherein the metal foil is bonded onto the surface of the substrate by using a paste containing glass frit as an adhesive. 4. The method for forming an electrode according to claim 2, wherein the metal foil is bonded onto the surface of the substrate by an anodic bonding method. 5. A method of forming electrodes on at least one substrate surface in a gas discharge display panel, wherein a plurality of electrodes are arranged on opposite surfaces of two substrates, wherein a metal foil of an electrode material is patterned. After the processing, the patterned metal foil is adhered to the surface of the substrate to form an electrode. 6. The method for forming an electrode according to claim 5, wherein the patterned metal foil is bonded onto the substrate surface using a paste containing glass frit as an adhesive. 7. The method for forming an electrode according to claim 5, wherein the patterned metal foil is bonded onto the surface of the substrate by an anodic bonding method.