JPH0850640A - Optical card - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To provide a good looking optical card excellent in flexural strength for which an optical recording member is buried in the recessed part of a card base material. CONSTITUTION:In this optical card composed by burying the optical recording member 5 for which a hardened surface layer, a transparent protective layer provided with a track pattern on a lower surface and an optical recording material layer are laminated successively from a top in the recessed part formed in the card base material 6 through an adhesive layer, at least one side in a longitudinal direction at the recessed part of the card base material 6 and the optical recording member 5 is turned to a waveform shape. Bending stress generated at the time of bending the card is dispersed at a part in a waveform shape and the generation of a crack or the like is prevented. It is preferrable to provide the adhesive layer not only on the bottom surface of the optical recording member 5 but also on an end face. Further, a taper may be provided on the end face of the optical recording member 5 and the side face of the recessed part of the card base material 6 so as to easily fit the optical recording member 5.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an optical card used for credit cards, cash cards, medical cards and the like.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, as a card-type recording medium, an optical card having a storage capacity larger than that of a magnetic card or an IC card has been developed. There are a ROM type, a write-once type, and an erasable type as the recording system of this optical card, and a recording medium and a structure of each are being studied. Among such optical cards, those in which an optical recording member is embedded in a card base material in an island shape are known (for example,
See Japanese Utility Model Publication No. 22222/1990).

[0003]

By the way, in the embedded optical card described in the prior art, since the optical recording member is embedded in the rectangular concave portion provided in the card base, the card is bent when the card is bent. Since stress concentrates on one side in the longitudinal direction of the concave portion of the base material, there is a problem that repeated bending causes cracks in this portion. This tendency was particularly significant when one side in the longitudinal direction is near the center of the card. Further, since the end surface of the optical recording member and the side surface of the recess of the card base material to be embedded are at right angles to the card surface, a gap must be provided to fit the optical recording member into the recess of the card base material properly. There was a drawback that the cards didn't look good.

The present invention has been made in view of the above problems and drawbacks, and an object of the present invention is to provide an optical card which is excellent in bending strength and has a good appearance.

[0005]

In order to achieve the above object, the optical card according to the present invention has a surface hardening layer 1 and a track pattern 2 on the lower surface in order from the top, as shown in the sectional view of FIG. The optical recording member 5 in which the transparent protective layer 3 and the optical recording material layer 4 having the
In the optical card embedded in the adhesive layer 8 via the adhesive layer 8,
As shown in FIG. 1, at least one side (upper side in the figure) in the longitudinal direction of the concave portion 7 of the optical recording member 5 and the card substrate 6 is formed in a wave shape.

Here, the term "corrugated" in the present invention basically includes all arbitrary shapes which are not in a straight line parallel to the longitudinal direction of the card. Specifically, FIG.
3A to 3H, a repeating shape of a part of a semicircle or an ellipse, a repeating shape such as a rectangle or a polygon with or without a corner R, a sawtooth shape, and the like. Four
As illustrated in (a) to (g), it includes all straight lines, curved lines, etc. inclined in the longitudinal direction of the card, and any combination thereof.

Then, it is preferable to embed the optical recording member 5 in the concave portion 7 of the card substrate 6 in a state where the end face a thereof is not exposed from the surface of the card substrate 6. In this case, the optical recording member 5 is used.
It is preferable that the adhesive layer 8 between the card base material 6 and the card base material 6 is present not only on the bottom surface of the optical recording member 5 but also on the end surface thereof.

Further, in order to easily fit the optical recording member 5 into the concave portion 7 of the card base material 6, as shown in FIG. 2, the end face a of the optical recording member 5 and the concave side surface of the card base material 6 are illustrated. It is preferable to provide a taper α on b, and such a taper α may be provided at least on each side in the longitudinal direction.

There are roughly two methods for obtaining the optical recording member 5 and the card substrate 6 as described above. First
Is a method of processing the end surface of the optical recording member and the recess of the card base material by cutting, and the second is a method of forming the optical recording member and the card base material by an injection method or a casting method.

In the first method, first, a surface-hardened layer is formed on one surface of the transparent protective layer, and a layer having a pattern and an optical recording material layer are formed on the other surface of the transparent protective layer. Are prepared, and each is individually cut to obtain an optical recording member of a predetermined size, and at least one side in the longitudinal direction is corrugated by cutting. At this time, a desired taper is provided on the end surface, if necessary. In order to prevent the optical recording material layer from being damaged during this cutting, a protective layer is provided on the surface of the optical recording material layer. As the protective layer, a layer that does not affect the optical recording material layer, such as an acrylic type, a vinyl chloride-based type, or a polyester type, is used. If a protective film is used, it is not necessary to provide this protective layer.

The material used for the transparent protective layer must have low birefringence. Specifically, polycarbonate (PC), polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA),
Acrylonitrile-styrene copolymer (AS), cellulose propionate (CP), cellulose acetate butyrate (CAB), polyvinyl chloride (PVC), polyester and the like can be used, and among them, the thickness is 400 μm.
Polycarbonate (PC) of the order of magnitude is suitable.

An acrylic UV-curable hard coat agent is suitable for the surface-hardened layer formed on one surface of the transparent protective layer. In addition, a melamine-based or silicon-based hard coating agent may be used, but one having excellent temperature and humidity suitability and having high hardness and not causing cracks even when bent is preferably used.

The patterned layer formed on the other surface of the transparent protective layer is formed by the generally known 2P method, injection method, casting method or the like. This time,
When a pattern is formed by the 2P method, a UV-curable resin is used, and in the injection method and the casting method, the same transparent protective layer is used. It should be noted that the layer having this pattern is prepared by filling it except that it has a dimple that allows cutting. This is because the optical recording material is effectively used.

For the optical recording material layer, in addition to the commonly used metal-based optical recording materials such as tellurium-based and bismuth-based materials, dye-based optical recording materials such as phthalocyanine-based materials and naphthoquinone-based materials can be used. Further, not only the write-once type but also the ROM type may be used.

On the other hand, the card base material is formed with a recess (counterboring process) in which the optical recording member is embedded. At this time, at least one side in the longitudinal direction is corrugated corresponding to the shape of the optical recording member, and when the end surface of the optical recording member is provided with a taper, the side surface of the concave portion is a taper of the end surface of the optical recording member. Counterbored to be the same as. Further, in order to obtain parallelism between the concave portion and the card end surface, the end surface of the card substrate 6 is cut at the same time as the counterbore processing.

Polyvinyl chloride, ABS resin, etc. are used as the card base material. In the case of polyvinyl chloride, 0.10 / 0.28 / 0.28 / 0.10 mm,
0.05 / 0.37 / 0.37 / 0.05mm, etc. 4
Layers are suitable. In addition, 0.10 mm, 0.05
mm is transparent polyvinyl chloride, 0.28m
m, 0.37 mm is opalescent polyvinyl chloride,
Printing is performed on one side of the opalescent polyvinyl chloride to increase the abrasion resistance of the printing.

Then, the optical recording member is fixed to the concave portion of the card substrate with an adhesive. As the adhesive, conventionally known adhesives such as urethane-based, epoxy-based, acrylic-based, vinyl-based, and amide-based adhesives can be used, but since the adhesive is in direct contact with the optical recording material layer, the recording sensitivity is good and Those having excellent suitability are preferable. As a bonding method, a UV curable adhesive is dripped into the concave portion of the card base material, an optical recording member is fitted therein, and a flat press corresponding to the size of the optical recording member is pressed to irradiate ultraviolet rays to bond. Or
There is a method in which a hot-melt adhesive is applied to the optical recording member with a T-die, and then hot-pressed with a flat press or a roll press for adhesion. In either case, the pressing conditions are set so that the adhesive spreads between the end surface of the optical recording member and the side surface of the concave portion of the card substrate. When an adhesive is used to fix the optical recording member in the concave portion of the card substrate, a double-sided adhesive sheet may be used.

According to another method of the first method, an optical recording member is formed by forming a surface hardened layer on one surface of a transparent protective layer and forming a patterned layer and an optical recording material layer on the other surface. To prepare a state in which a plastic hot melt adhesive is applied on the optical recording material layer, and the optical recording members laminated up to this adhesive are individually cut, and then the same cutting process as described above is performed. After that, the optical recording member is fitted into the concave portion of the card base material and heat-pressed with a flat press or a roll press to bond them. In this case, the pressing conditions are set so that the adhesive melts and spreads between the end surface of the optical recording member and the side surface of the concave portion of the card substrate.

In the second method, first, a resin such as polycarbonate or acrylic is used, and a transparent protective layer having a pattern is formed by a generally known injection method or casting method. At this time, at least one side in the longitudinal direction is formed into a corrugated shape, and if necessary, all end faces are tapered so as to be formed. Then, a surface hardened layer is formed on the side opposite to the pattern surface, and an optical recording material layer is formed on the pattern surface. As the surface hardened layer and the optical recording material layer, the same ones as described above are used. On the other hand, a resin such as ABS resin or polyvinyl chloride is used to prepare a card base material by an injection method or a casting method. At this time, a concave portion in which the optical recording member is embedded is formed, but in the case where at least one side in the longitudinal direction is corrugated corresponding to the shape of the optical recording member and the end surface of the optical recording member is tapered, The side surface of the recess is shaped to be the same as the taper of the end surface of the optical recording member. In addition, painting is performed by in-mold molding. Then, by the same method as described above, the optical recording member is fixed to the concave portion of the card base material with an adhesive or a pressure sensitive adhesive.

In the optical card of the type shown in FIG. 1, the optical recording member 5 is embedded in the shape of an island, but the optical recording member 5 may be embedded in a truncated structure as shown in FIG. By embedding in such a form, when the recess 7 is formed in the card substrate 6 by the counterbore processing, even if the recess 7 is wide, the processing can be performed in one pass, so that the cost can be reduced. The optical recording material layer 4 contains Te
When Ox or the like is used, it is possible to oxidize from the edge portions at both ends, so it is preferable to omit the optical recording material layer 4 in the portions near both ends as shown by the shaded portion in FIG. If you do so, it will look like the one embedded in an island.

In the optical card of the present invention, the optical recording material layer in the corrugated portion may be omitted. For example, as shown by the shaded area in FIG. 6, the optical recording material layer 4 is formed only in a portion other than the region where the corrugation is provided. That is, the track for recording information runs in the longitudinal direction of the card, and the corrugated area cannot be used for recording information. Therefore, even if omitted in this way, it does not relate to the amount of information. In this way, the amount of the expensive optical recording material layer used is reduced, and since this portion becomes transparent, it looks like a straight line and the waveform becomes inconspicuous.

In order to diversify the use of the optical card of the present invention, as shown in FIGS. 7 to 10, the same surface as the optical recording member 5 or the opposite surface or both surfaces of the card substrate 6 are provided. The magnetic stripe 9 may be provided on the optical recording member 5, or the IC module 10 may be provided on the same surface as or the surface opposite to the optical recording member 5. Further, it is of course possible to form card information such as a personal name and a registration number as embossed characters in areas other than the optical recording member by embossing.

[0023]

In the optical card of the present invention having the above-mentioned structure, at least one side in the longitudinal direction of the concave portion of the optical recording member and the card base material in which the optical recording member is embedded is corrugated, and this corrugated portion is the card. It functions to disperse the bending stress generated when bending and improves the bending strength.

[0024]

【Example】

Example 1 First, a hard coat agent (manufactured by Toray, UH-00 manufactured by Toray Co., Ltd.) was spin-coated on one surface of a sheet-molded polycarbonate (transparent protective layer) having a thickness of 0.4 mm.
1) was applied to form a surface-hardened layer. Next, a guide track pattern was formed on the surface opposite to the surface hardened layer by the 2P method, and TeOx was sputtered on the guide track pattern to form an optical recording material layer. Then, on this optical recording material layer,
Adhesive using T-die (Toa Gosei Co., Ltd., PPET-21
01) was applied in a thickness of 50 μm. Then, a width of 3 mm, a pitch of 4 mm, and a corner R1 m on one side in the longitudinal direction.
to form a waveform of m (Fig. 1) and the end face is 10 °
An optical recording member was prepared by cutting so as to have a taper and a parallelism with the track of the card.

On the other hand, two core sheets of 0.28 mm opalescent vinyl chloride are printed on one side with silk offset, and the non-printed side of these two core sheets is overlaid with a 0.10 mm oversheet. It was sandwiched by two sheets and heat-fused to prepare a four-layer card base material. A magnetic tape of 650 Oersted was formed on one surface of one oversheet, and a magnetic tape of 290 Oersted was formed on one surface of the other oversheet. Then, a recess was formed in the card base material by cutting to embed the optical recording member. That is, the same waveform as that of the optical recording member is formed on one upper side in the longitudinal direction of the recess, and the side surface of the recess has a taper angle of 10 ° outward with respect to the vertical direction from the bottom surface of the card. Counterboring was performed with a size 50 μm larger than that of the recording member, and cutting of the end surface of the card substrate was performed so that parallelism with the recesses was obtained.

[0026] fit the optical recording member into the recess of the card substrate created above, using a flat press that matches the size of the optical recording member, 120 ° C., 2 under the conditions of 6 kg / cm ^2.
Heat pressing was performed for 5 seconds. This melts the adhesive,
The optical recording member could be bonded while covering the bottom surface and the end surface. Further, since vinyl chloride hitting the bottom surface of the optical recording member conducts heat from the top surface of the transparent protective layer (polycarbonate), there is no sagging due to the heat.

Optical card R / W for the above sample
When data of 100 tracks was written with (3B3H-DJ-01 made by OMRON), the error rate was 1 × 1.
It was within 0 ^-4 . Furthermore, even if the card base material of the above sample was embossed, data could be written and read by the optical card R / W. Further, the above sample was subjected to a bending test in accordance with the ISO bending test standard, but there was no problem.

Example 2 A patterned polymethylmethacrylate (surface protective layer) having a thickness of 0.4 mm was prepared by the casting method. At this time, it was designed so as to form a waveform (FIG. 1) having a width of 3 mm, a pitch of 4 mm, and a corner R1 mm in the top portion in the longitudinal direction, and the end face was tapered to 10 °. Next, on the opposite side of the pattern surface, a hard coating agent (made by Toray, UH
-001) was applied to form a surface hardened layer, and then TeOx was sputtered on the pattern surface to form an optical recording material layer, thereby forming an optical recording member.

On the other hand, a card size of 0.78 mm thick was obtained by injection method using ABS resin.
A card base material having a recess for embedding the optical recording member was prepared. This recess has a depth of 0.45 mm, has the same corrugation as that of the optical recording member on one side in the longitudinal direction, and its side surface has a taper angle of 10 ° outward with respect to the vertical direction from the card bottom surface. , Outer size is 16mm × 84
It was molded to have a size of mm. In this case, the pattern was formed by in-mold molding.

Next, a UV curable adhesive (863 made by Kyoritsu Kagaku Sangyo Co., Ltd.) was dropped on the concave portion of the card substrate, an optical recording member was fitted into the concave portion, and the whole was pressed by a flat press, The adhesive was cured by irradiating with ultraviolet rays. At this time, the press conditions were set so that the adhesive was spread even on the end surface of the optical recording member.

Optical card R / W for the above sample
When data of 100 tracks was written with (3B3H-DJ-01 made by OMRON), the error rate was 1 × 1.
It was within 0 ^-4 . Further, the above sample was subjected to a bending test in accordance with the ISO bending test standard, but there was no problem.

[0032]

Since the present invention is constructed as described above, it has the following effects.

By bending at least one side in the longitudinal direction of the concave portion of the optical recording member and the card base material in which the optical recording member is embedded, the bending stress generated when the card is bent is dispersed, so that the strength against bending is improved. Can be made.

Since the adhesive layer between the optical recording member and the card substrate is provided not only on the bottom surface of the optical recording member but also on the end surface, an optical card with further improved bending strength can be obtained.

By providing the end surface of the optical recording member and the side surface of the concave portion of the card base material with the taper, the optical recording member can be easily embedded and the gap between the end surface of the optical recording member and the side surface of the concave portion of the card base material can be reduced. It will look good.

Since the optical recording member is embedded in a part of the card substrate, by utilizing the remaining area of the card substrate, an optical card of a form that could not be manufactured up to now, for example, a magnetic stripe is formed on both sides. Optical card,
It is possible to manufacture an optical card with embossing, an optical card in which the optical recording unit and the IC module are not on the same surface, an optical card capable of CP processing on both sides, and an optical card capable of transferring holograms on both sides.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a plan view showing an embodiment of an optical card according to the present invention. .

FIG. 2 is a partially enlarged sectional view taken along line XX of FIG.

FIG. 3 is a specific example for explaining the shape of “waveform” in the present invention.

FIG. 4 is another specific example.

FIG. 5 is a plan view for explaining an optical card as another embodiment.

FIG. 6 is a plan view for explaining an optical card as still another embodiment.

FIG. 7 is a perspective view showing an example of an optical card provided with a magnetic stripe on the same surface as an optical recording member.

FIG. 8 is a perspective view showing another example of an optical card in which a magnetic stripe is provided on the same surface as an optical recording member.

FIG. 9 is a perspective view showing an example of an optical card in which a magnetic stripe and an IC module are provided on the same surface as an optical recording member.

FIG. 10: Magnetic stripe and IC on the same surface as the optical recording member
It is a perspective view showing an example of an optical card provided with a module.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 Surface Hardened Layer 2 Transparent Protective Layer 3 Pattern Layer 4 Optical Recording Material Layer 5 Optical Recording Member 6 Card Base Material 7 Recesses 8 Adhesive Layer 9 Magnetic Stripe 10 IC Module

Claims (8)

[Claims] 1. An optical recording member in which a surface hardened layer, a transparent protective layer having a track pattern on the lower surface, and an optical recording material layer are laminated in this order from the top through an adhesive layer in a recess formed in a card substrate. In the optical card to be embedded, at least one side in the longitudinal direction of the concave portion of the optical recording member and the card base material is corrugated. 2. The optical card according to claim 1, wherein the adhesive layer between the optical recording member and the card substrate is provided not only on the bottom surface but also on the end surface of the optical recording member. 3. The optical card according to claim 1, wherein the end surface of the optical recording member and the side surface of the concave portion of the card substrate are provided with a taper. 4. The optical card according to claim 1, wherein the end surface of the optical recording member and the concave portion of the card base material are machined by cutting. 5. The optical card according to claim 1, wherein the optical recording member and the card substrate are produced by an injection method or a casting method. 6. The optical card according to claim 1, wherein a magnetic stripe is provided on the same surface as the optical recording member, the opposite surface, or both surfaces of the card substrate. 7. The IC module is provided on the same surface as or an opposite surface of the optical recording member.
The optical card of 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6. 8. An area other than the optical recording member is embossed.
Or the optical card described in 7.