JPH0981972A - Optical card - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To improve the stability of optical recording in a flush type optical card. SOLUTION: In the optical card embedding an optical recording member 1 with an optical recording layer 5 laminated, in the recessed part, of a card base material 2, while covering a track pattern 4 provided on the rear of a transparent protection layer 3, a gap (x) between the end face (a) of the optical recording member 1 and the side (b) of the recessed part of the card base material 2 is set to 5-200μm. Since the optical recording member 1 is easily embedded into the recessed part 7 of the card base material 2 and parallelism between the tracking of optical recording and the edge of the card is secured, the stable aptitude to read-out and write-in is attained.

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]

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, one in which an optical recording member is embedded in a card base material in an island shape is known (for example, see Japanese Utility Model Publication No. 22222/1990).

In the embedded optical card as described above, since the optical recording member is embedded in the rectangular recess provided in the card base material, there is a gap between the end surface of the optical recording member and the side surface of the recess of the card base material. Gap is required. That is, if this gap is too small, the optical recording member cannot be loaded on the card substrate. On the other hand, in an optical card, the tracking of optical recording is parallel to the longitudinal edge of the card, and its value is defined in the form of card skew. According to the ISO standard, the inclination is specified to be within 0.2 degrees, and if it exceeds this, optical recording will be hindered. Therefore, in the embedded type optical card, a gap for loading the optical recording member is required, but if the gap is too large, the parallelism with respect to the longitudinal edge of the card cannot be obtained.

The present invention has been made in view of the above problems, and an object of the present invention is to provide an optical card of an embedded type in which an optical recording member is embedded in a recess of a card substrate. An object of the present invention is to provide an optical card that improves the stability of optical recording by providing parallelism to the longitudinal edge of the card for recording tracking.

[0005]

In order to achieve the above object, the optical card of the present invention comprises an optical recording member in which an optical recording layer is laminated so as to cover a track pattern provided on the back side of a transparent protective layer. In an optical card embedded in a recess formed in a card base material, the gap between the end face of the optical recording member and the side surface of the recess of the card base material is 5 to 200 μm.

[0006]

BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION An embodiment of the present invention will be described. FIGS. 1 and 2 show an optical card as an example of the present invention. FIG. 1 is a perspective view thereof, and FIG. It is a partially expanded sectional view in A.

As shown in FIG. 1, this optical card has an optical recording member 1 embedded in a card substrate 2 in an island shape. The optical recording member 1, as shown in FIG. 2, has a transparent protective layer 3 having a track pattern 4 on its lower surface,
The optical recording layer 5 is laminated so as to cover the track pattern 4, and the surface hardening layer 6 is provided on the surface of the transparent protective layer 3. The adhesive layer 8 is provided in the concave portion 7 formed in the card substrate 2. And the gap x between the end face a of the optical recording member 1 and the concave side face b of the card base material is 5 to 200 μm.
It is in the range of m. In this way, the gap x is 5 to 200 μ
By setting m, the inclination of the track pattern 4 of the optical recording member 1 and the card edge is kept within 0.2 degrees,
It does not hinder the optical recording.

The optical recording member 1 is provided with a concave portion 7 of the card substrate 2 with its end face a not exposed from the surface of the card substrate 2.
Preferably embedded in In order to make it easier to fit the optical recording member 1 into the recess 7 of the card substrate 2,
As shown in FIG. 2, the end surface a of the optical recording member 1 and the card base 2
It is preferable to provide a taper α on the concave portion side surface b, and such a taper α may be provided at least on each side in the longitudinal direction.

There are two methods for obtaining the optical recording member 1 and the card substrate 2 as described above.
Broadly speaking, the first method is a cutting method, and the second method is a molding method. Hereinafter, each method will be described in detail.

In order to prepare the optical recording member 1 by the first method, first, the surface hardening layer 6 is formed on one surface of the transparent protective layer 3 and the layer having the track pattern 4 on the other surface and the optical recording. A multiple-sided optical recording member sheet formed by forming the layer 5 is prepared. After this is cut into individual pieces, the end faces are cut to form the optical recording member 1. At this time, the end surface of the optical recording member 1 is cut so that the longitudinal direction thereof is parallel to the track pattern 4. In addition, a desired taper is provided on the end surface as needed. In order to prevent the optical recording layer 5 from being damaged during this cutting, a protective layer is usually provided on the surface of the optical recording layer 5. As the protective layer, an acrylic type, vinyl chloride-based type, polyester type or the like that does not affect the optical recording layer 5 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 3 must have a small birefringence. Specifically, polycarbonate (PC), polymethylmethacrylate (PMM
A), acrylonitrile-styrene copolymer (AS),
Cellulose propionate (CP), cellulose acetate butyrate (CAB), polyvinyl chloride (PV
C), polyester and the like can be used, and among them, polycarbonate (PC) having a thickness of about 400 μm is suitable.

As the surface hardened layer 6 formed on one surface of the transparent protective layer 3, an acrylic UV curable hard coat agent is suitable. 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 layer having the track pattern 4 formed on the other surface of the transparent protective layer 3 is formed by a generally known 2P method, injection method, casting method, or the like. At this time, when a pattern is formed by the 2P method, a UV-curable resin is used, and by the injection method or the casting method, the same transparent protective layer 3 is used. As the optical recording layer 5, 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.

To prepare the optical recording member 1 by the second method, first, a transparent protective layer 3 with a track pattern is prepared by a generally known injection method or casting method using a resin such as polycarbonate or acrylic. . At this time, the transparent protective layer 3 is formed so that the longitudinal direction thereof is parallel to the track pattern 4, and if necessary, all end faces are tapered. Then, the surface hardened layer 6 is formed on the opposite side of the track pattern 4, and the optical recording layer 5 is formed on the track pattern surface to prepare the optical recording member 1. The optical recording layer 5 and the surface hardened layer 6
As the above, the same ones as described above are used.

To make the card substrate 2 by the first method, the concave portion 7 in which the optical recording member 1 is embedded is formed by cutting (counterboring) and the edge is cut. At this time, the end surface a of the optical recording member 1 and the card substrate 2
When the gap with the concave side surface b of the optical recording member 1 is set to 5 to 200 μm and the end surface a of the optical recording member 1 is provided with a taper, the concave side surface b of the card base material 2 is the optical recording member 1.
The end surface a is cut to have the same taper.
Further, it is necessary to obtain parallelism between the concave portion 7 and the longitudinal edge of the card, but for this purpose, it is advisable to perform the cutting processing of the concave portion 7 and the edge of the card base material 2 coaxially.

As the card substrate 2 used in the first method, polyvinyl chloride, ABS resin or the like is used. In the case of polyvinyl chloride, 0.10 / 0.28 / 0.28 /
0.10 mm, 0.05 / 0.37 / 0.37 / 0.0
Four layers, such as 5 mm, are suitable. In addition, 0.10
mm and 0.05 mm are transparent polyvinyl chloride, 0.28 mm and 0.37 mm are opalescent polyvinyl chloride, printed on one side of opalescent polyvinyl chloride to increase abrasion resistance of printing. Is applied.

To prepare the card substrate 2 by the second method, a resin such as ABS resin or polyvinyl chloride is used and the card substrate 2 is prepared by the injection method or the casting method. At this time, the concave portion 7 in which the optical recording member 1 is embedded is formed, but the gap between the end surface a of the optical recording member 1 and the concave side surface b of the card substrate 2 is set to be 5 to 200 μm. When the end surface a of the optical recording member 1 is tapered, the concave side surface b of the card substrate 2 is formed to be the same as the taper of the end surface a of the optical recording member 1.
In addition, the molding is performed so that the concave portion 7 of the card substrate 2 and the longitudinal edge are parallel to each other. The painting is performed by in-mold molding.

The optical recording member 1 prepared as described above is embedded in the concave portion 7 of the card substrate 2 and fixed by the adhesive layer 8. As the adhesive, conventionally known adhesives such as urethane-based, epoxy-based, acrylic-based, vinyl-based, and amide-based adhesives can be used. However, since the adhesive layer 8 directly contacts the optical recording layer 5,
It is preferable that the recording sensitivity is good and the temperature and humidity are excellent. As a bonding method, a UV curable adhesive is dropped on the concave portion 7 of the card substrate 2, the optical recording member 1 is fitted therein, and the flat recording press corresponding to the size of the optical recording member 1 is pressed to irradiate ultraviolet rays. And then adhere, or the optical recording member 1
There is a method in which a hot-melt adhesive is applied to the above 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 agent spreads between the end surface a of the optical recording member 1 and the concave side surface b of the card substrate 2. Also, the card substrate 2
When an adhesive is used to fix the optical recording member 1 in the concave portion 7, a double-sided adhesive sheet may be used.

When the optical recording member 1 is produced by the first method, the following adhesion method may be adopted. That is, an optical recording member sheet is prepared in which the surface hardened layer 6 is formed on one surface of the transparent protective layer 3 and the layer having the track pattern 4 and the optical recording layer 5 are formed on the other surface thereof, and the optical recording member sheet is prepared. The layer 5 is coated with a plastic hot melt adhesive, and the optical recording member sheet laminated up to the adhesive layer 8 is cut into individual optical recording members 1 and then the same cutting process as described above is performed. After that, the optical recording member 1 is fitted into the concave portion 7 of the card base material 2 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.

The optical card as shown in FIGS. 1 and 2 is manufactured as described above. In order to further increase the parallelism between the track pattern 4 of the optical recording member 1 and the card edge, the following steps are performed. It is good to adopt a method. That is, a card base material 2 with a recess 7 having a size slightly larger than the card shape is prepared by cutting or molding, and the optical recording member 1 is embedded in the recess 7 and then the card shape is formed with reference to the track pattern 4. It is used for punching.

The optical card of the type shown in FIG. 1 is one in which the optical recording member 1 is embedded in an island shape. However, as shown in FIG. 3, both ends of the optical recording member 1 are cut off to form a card substrate. It may be embedded in 2. When embedding in such a form, the card base material 2 is formed by counterboring.
When the concave portion 7 is formed on the substrate, even if the concave portion 7 is wide, it can be processed in one pass, so that the cost can be reduced.

In order to diversify the use of the optical card of the present invention, a magnetic stripe 9 and an IC module 10 are provided on the same surface as the optical recording member 1 as illustrated in FIGS. 4 to 6. May be. Although not shown, a magnetic stripe may be provided on the opposite side or both sides of the optical recording member,
The IC module may be provided on the surface opposite to the optical recording member. In addition, 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.

[0022]

【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 track pattern is formed on the surface opposite to the surface hardened layer by the 2P method,
TeOx was sputtered thereon to form an optical recording layer. Then, on the optical recording layer, 50 μm of an adhesive (PPET-2101 manufactured by Toagosei) was used using a T-die.
It was applied in a thickness of m. Then, it is cut so that the longitudinal direction is 60 mm, the short side direction is 15 mm, the four corners are 2 mmR, and the end face is tapered by 10 °, and the longitudinal direction is parallel to the track pattern. An optical recording member was created.

On the other hand, two core sheets of 0.28 mm opalescent vinyl chloride are printed on one side with silk offset, respectively, 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 recess has a depth of 0.45 mm, and the side surface is formed to be 100 μm larger than the size of the optical recording member, 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. The cutting process was performed so that

[0024] 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., under the conditions of 6 kg / cm ² 30
Heat press was performed for a minute. As a result, the adhesive was melted, and the optical recording member could be adhered while covering the bottom surface and the end surface. Then, an optical card having an outer dimension of 16 mm × 84 mm was manufactured by punching into a card shape based on the track pattern of the embedded optical recording member.

An 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 polymethylmethacrylate (transparent protective layer) with a track pattern having a thickness of 0.4 mm was prepared by the casting method. At this time, it is designed so that the longitudinal direction is 83 mm, the short side direction is 18 mm, the quadrangle is 1 mmR, the end face is tapered by 10 °, and the longitudinal direction is parallel to the track pattern. I saved it. Next, a hard coating agent (UH-001, manufactured by Toray) is applied to the side opposite to the pattern surface by a spin coating method to form a surface hardened layer, and then TeOx is sputtered on the pattern surface to form an optical recording layer. Thus, an optical recording member was created.

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. The concave portion has a depth of 0.45 mm, the side surface is 50 μm larger than the size of the optical recording member, and the side surface has a taper angle of 10 ° outward with respect to the vertical direction from the bottom surface of the card. Size 16
It was molded to have a size of mm × 84 mm. In this case, the pattern was formed by in-mold molding.

Then, after a UV curable adhesive (863 made by Kyoritsu Kagaku Sangyo Co., Ltd.) was dropped into the concave portion of the card substrate, the 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.

[0030]

As described above, the present invention has the following advantages.

In the optical card of the present invention, since the gap between the end face of the optical recording member and the side surface of the concave portion of the card base material is 5 to 200 μm, the optical recording member can be easily fitted into the concave portion of the card base material, and further the optical recording can be performed. Since the parallelism between the tracking and the card edge is obtained, the read / write suitability is stable.

By using a card base material in which the recess and the edge in the longitudinal direction are coaxially cut, tracking of optical recording and parallelism of the card edge can be more accurately achieved. By embedding the optical recording member in the recess and then punching it into a card shape with the track pattern as a reference, tracking of optical recording and parallelism of the card edge can be further improved.

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 perspective view showing an optical card according to an embodiment of the present invention. .

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

FIG. 3 is a perspective view showing an optical card according to another embodiment.

FIG. 4 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. 5 is a perspective view showing an example of an optical card provided with a magnetic stripe and an IC module on the same surface as an optical recording member.

FIG. 6 is a perspective view showing an example of an optical card provided with two magnetic stripes and an IC module on the same surface as an optical recording member.

[Explanation of symbols]

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

Claims (14)

[Claims] 1. An optical recording member in which an optical recording layer is laminated so as to cover a track pattern provided on the back side of a transparent protective layer,
An optical card embedded in a recess formed in a card substrate, wherein the gap between the end face of the optical recording member and the side face of the recess of the card substrate is 5 to 200 μm. 2. The optical card according to claim 1, wherein an optical recording member is used which is obtained by cutting an end face of an optical recording member sheet that has been multi-faced and cut individually. 3. The optical card according to claim 2, wherein an end face in the longitudinal direction of the optical recording member is cut so as to have parallelism with the track pattern. 4. The optical card according to claim 1, wherein the optical recording member comprises an optical recording layer provided on a transparent protective layer having a track pattern, which is formed by an injection method or a casting method. 5. The optical card according to claim 4, wherein an end face in the longitudinal direction of the transparent protective layer is formed so as to have parallelism with the track pattern. 6. The optical card according to claim 2, wherein a card base material having a recess formed by cutting and an edge cut is used. 7. The optical card according to claim 6, wherein the recess and the longitudinal edge of the card substrate are coaxially cut. 8. The optical card according to claim 2, wherein the optical recording member is embedded in a recess of a card base material formed by cutting and then punched into a card shape based on a track pattern. 9. The optical card according to any one of claims 2 to 5, wherein a card base material having a recess formed by an injection method or a casting method is used. 10. The optical card according to claim 9, wherein the optical card is molded so that the concave portion of the card substrate and the longitudinal edge are parallel to each other. 11. The method according to claim 2, wherein after the optical recording member is embedded in the concave portion of the card base material formed by the injection method or the casting method, the optical recording member is punched into a card shape based on the track pattern. Optical card. 12. The optical card according to claim 1, wherein a magnetic stripe is provided on the same surface, the opposite surface, or both surfaces of the optical recording member. 13. The optical card according to claim 1, wherein an IC module is embedded in the same surface as or a surface opposite to the optical recording member. 14. The optical card according to claim 1, wherein an area other than the optical recording member is embossed.