JPH10278281A - Manufacture of ink jet printer head - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To realize a head having stabilized jetting performance by writing a mask pattern directly on the surface of a liquid chamber forming member, forming a corresponding transmission rod on a diaphragm and machining the liquid chamber forming member using a laser thereby enhancing the bonding strength and the sealing performance of the diaphragm. SOLUTION: A liquid chamber forming member is bonded to an SAS diaphragm 5 to produce a single substrate which is coated, on the member 7 side, with a photosensitive resist 15 on the deposited chromium and then a quartz mask in liquid chamber pattern is exposed with UV-rays and developed. The SUS side is similarly treated using a mask of conductive rod pattern. After electroforming of nickel using exposed chromium and SUS as an electrode 13, the resist 15 is removed to obtain a mask pattern 9 which is then subjected to laser machining from the member 7 side. When the chromium disappeared, machining is continued while lowering the output thus ensuring a uniform depth machining using the SUS as a stopper. Consequently, a liquid chamber 3 bonded with the diaphragm 5 can be machined and then a nozzle plate 51, a transmission rod 11 and a driving element 1 are bonded.

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 printer head which transmits a deformation of a driving element to a vibration plate which forms a part of a liquid chamber and discharges ink by generating a pressure in the liquid chamber.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In an ink jet printer head which transmits a deformation of a driving element to a vibration plate forming a part of a liquid chamber and discharges ink by generating a pressure in the liquid chamber, it is necessary to improve printing performance. Liquid chamber shape, rigidity,
It is necessary to optimize the rigidity and vibration mode of the diaphragm, but in the conventional method, the liquid chamber and the diaphragm are individually manufactured to optimal values independently, and they are joined and assembled. Was.

Hereinafter, a method for manufacturing an ink jet printer head using a piezoelectric element, which is manufactured by a conventional method, will be described with reference to the drawings.

The structure of an ink jet printer head manufactured by a conventional method is, for example, as shown in FIG.
Nozzle plate 51, liquid chamber forming member 7, diaphragm 5, transmission rod 1
1. The drive elements 1 are manufactured separately, and are completed by bonding them together with an adhesive such as epoxy.

[0005] In the drawing, a nozzle plate 51 is made by punching a stainless steel plate (hereinafter referred to as SUS) of about 100 µm, and water repellency is imparted to the front side. Nozzle hole is about 4
It has a diameter of about 0 μm and is arranged in accordance with the liquid chamber 3.

The liquid chamber 3 is formed by injection molding of a plastic material into a predetermined shape using a metal mold or excimer laser processing. In the case of injection molding, an epoxy-based thermoplastic resin is selected, and in the case of excimer laser processing, a material having a suitable light absorption wavelength such as polysulfone is selected.

The diaphragm 5 is made of a nickel plate having a thickness of about 5 μm by using an electroforming method, and is provided with a projecting transmission rod in accordance with the position of each liquid chamber, so that the driving element 1 can be efficiently deformed. It serves to transmit the vibration to the diaphragm 5 and to loosen the tolerance of the positioning accuracy with the liquid chamber 3.

The driving element 1 is made of lead zirconate titanate, and is made by sintering green sheets and electrodes alternately laminated. In this example, the fired material is cut into a rectangular parallelepiped, joined to the base 53, and then grooved with a wire saw in accordance with the liquid chamber pitch. The drive element 1 is polarized in the direction from the base 53 toward the diaphragm 5, and the common electrode and the drive electrode are alternately stacked inside the drive element.
When a groove is formed by a wire saw, the internal electrodes are also separated, so that by applying a voltage in parallel with the polarization direction, each peak can be driven independently.

[0009]

However, in assembling the parts, the joining strength, the joining gap, the positioning of the parts, and the like must be satisfied. Among the parts constituting the head, the diaphragm is particularly thick. Is about 5-10 μm
However, there is a problem in characteristics such as a positioning error at the time of bonding, a positional deviation at the time of bonding, a breakage, and the like, which deteriorates a yield and a sufficient displacement cannot be obtained.

That is, when assembling the parts, it is sufficient that the joint area is sufficient and the positioning accuracy is low.
In recent years, there has been an increasing demand for improved printing performance, and the gap between nozzles has been gradually narrowed. Temporarily 180d
When the head is designed with pi (141 μm pitch), the liquid chamber 3
Is 90 μm and the thickness of the wall is about 50 μm. If the width of the transmission rod 11 is 30 μm, the alignment tolerance is ± 1.
Expected to be about 0 μm. At this time, the positioning method using the guide pins 55 or the like to align the end faces of the parts requires high dimensional accuracy for the parts themselves, and furthermore, the transmission rod 1
Joining the diaphragm 5 on which the plate 1 is formed to the liquid chamber forming member 7 in alignment with the position of the liquid chamber 3 is likely to cause misalignment and poor adhesion.

[0011]

In order to solve the above-mentioned problems, in the present invention, the deformation of the driving element is transmitted to a vibration plate forming a part of the liquid chamber, and the pressure is generated in the liquid chamber to form the ink. In the method for manufacturing an ink jet printer head for discharging liquid, a step of bonding a vibration plate to a liquid chamber forming member forming a liquid chamber and a mask pattern for laser processing in which a predetermined liquid chamber pattern is drawn are formed on the liquid chamber forming member. Forming directly on the surface of, and forming a transmission rod on the diaphragm corresponding to the mask pattern,
By manufacturing the ink jet printer head by performing the processing of the liquid chamber forming member by laser using the mask pattern, a problem related to joining the liquid chamber forming member and the vibration plate is solved.

Here, the mask pattern includes a step of forming an electrode on the surface of the liquid chamber forming member, a step of applying a photosensitive resist on the surface of the electrode and exposing and developing the same by a photolithography method; And a step of removing the photosensitive resist.

[0013] The transmission rod includes a step of forming an electrode on the surface of the diaphragm, a step of applying a photosensitive resist on the surface of the electrode, exposing and developing the same by photolithography, and a step of using the electrode. A step of performing electrolytic plating;
And removing the photosensitive resist.

The vibration plate may be an electrode for forming the transmission rod, and the mask pattern and the transmission rod may be simultaneously formed by electrolytic plating.

(Function) According to the present invention, a liquid chamber is formed in an ink-jet printer head which transmits a deformation of a driving element to a vibration plate forming a part of a liquid chamber and generates ink in the liquid chamber to discharge ink. After joining the member and the diaphragm in advance, the transmission rod can be formed and the liquid chamber can be processed with optical dimensional accuracy by photolithography.
Various problems relating to the joining of the diaphragms can be solved, and an ink jet printer head with a good yield and a stable high printing quality can be obtained without excessively demanding the dimensional accuracy of each component.

[0016]

BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION Hereinafter, the present invention will be described in detail with reference to examples.

FIG. 2 and FIG. 3 show process diagrams of the present embodiment.
(A) to (h) show the order of the steps.

(Embodiment) In FIG. 2A, the liquid chamber forming member 7 is a polysulfone resin (hereinafter referred to as P) having a thickness of about 300 μm.
The diaphragm 5 is made of SU having a thickness of about 5 μm.
S. These are all joined by an ultraviolet curable resin to form one substrate.

In FIG. 2B, 400 Å of chromium is vapor-deposited on the PSF side of the substrate by vacuum vapor deposition or the like, and a photosensitive resist 15 is further applied to the surface of the substrate from above.
Is applied by spin coating to a thickness of about 20 μm, and prebaked. The photosensitive resist 15 is exposed and developed by a photolithography method using a quartz mask on which a liquid chamber pattern is drawn, and is post-baked.

In FIG. 2C, the SUS side similarly exposes and develops the quartz mask on which the transmission rod pattern is drawn by optically aligning it with the liquid chamber pattern, and performs post-baking. .

In FIG. 2D, when post-baking is completed, chromium deposited on the PSF side and SUS on the diaphragm side are exposed in the gaps of the photosensitive resist 15, and these are then used as electrodes. Nickel electroformed on both sides simultaneously, 10μ in thickness
m. Electroforming may be performed one by one, but by performing the electroforming at the same time, the problem of internal stress can be reduced.

In FIG. 2E, after the nickel electroforming, the photosensitive resist 15 is removed with a special stripping solution to form a patterned nickel electroforming layer. This mask pattern 9
Since is manufactured by the optical dimensional accuracy of photolithography, it can be manufactured with an accuracy of 5 μm or less.

In FIG. 3 (f), at this stage, 400 .ANG. Of chromium is present in the liquid chamber portion and 10 .mu.m of nickel is present in the liquid chamber wall portion on the PSF. Chrome 4 in the direction
Laser processing for 00 angstrom.

In FIG. 3 (g), since the chromium in the liquid chamber disappears and PSF appears, the output of the laser is reduced, and the PSF portion is laser-processed using the difference in the processing speed of the nickel and the PSF with respect to the laser. . Then, the PSF corresponding to the portion of the liquid chamber 3 finally disappears, and S
Reach US. Since the output of the laser at this time is not so high as to penetrate the SUS, this serves as a stopper, and guarantees the uniformity in the depth direction of all the liquid chamber portions to be processed.

In FIG. 3 (h), the liquid chamber 3 can be processed in the form in which the vibration plate 5 has already been joined by the above steps, and a 100 μm SUS plate is formed on the liquid chamber 3 by drilling.
1 is joined from the PSF side, and the drive element 1 which has been separately grooved is aligned and joined to the transmission rod 11, whereby an ink jet printer head capable of finally discharging can be obtained.

[0026]

As described above, according to the present invention, it is possible to manufacture a highly reliable head with stable ejection performance, with improved bonding strength and sealability of the diaphragm, reduced interference between liquid chambers. become.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a simple component configuration of an ink jet printer head manufactured by a conventional method.

FIG. 2 is a simplified process diagram of an embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a simplified process diagram of the embodiment.

[Explanation of symbols]

 Reference Signs List 1 drive element 3 liquid chamber 5 diaphragm 7 liquid chamber forming member 9 mask pattern 11 transmission rod 13 electrode 15 photosensitive resist 51 nozzle plate 53 base 55 guide pin

Claims (5)

[Claims] 1. A method for manufacturing an ink jet printer head for transmitting a deformation of a driving element to a vibration plate forming a part of a liquid chamber and discharging ink by generating a pressure in the liquid chamber. Bonding a diaphragm to the chamber forming member, forming a mask pattern for laser processing in which a predetermined liquid chamber pattern is drawn directly on the surface of the liquid chamber forming member, and forming the mask pattern on the diaphragm A method of manufacturing an ink jet printer head, comprising: a step of forming a transmission rod corresponding to the method; and a step of processing the liquid chamber forming member by laser light using the mask pattern. 2. The step of forming an electrode on the surface of the liquid chamber forming member, applying a photosensitive resist on the surface of the electrode, exposing and developing the electrode by a photolithography method, A method for manufacturing an ink-jet printer head, comprising: a step of performing electrolytic plating using the same; and a step of removing the photosensitive resist. 3. The step of forming an electrode on the surface of the diaphragm, the step of applying a photosensitive resist on the surface of the electrode, exposing and developing the resist by photolithography, and using the electrode. A method for manufacturing an ink jet printer head, which is formed by a step of performing electrolytic plating and a step of removing the photosensitive resist. 4. The method according to claim 3, wherein the diaphragm serves as an electrode for forming the transmission rod. 5. The method according to claim 1, wherein the formation of the mask pattern and the transmission rod is performed simultaneously by electrolytic plating.