JPS59189131A - Plasma treatment apparatus - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To prevent the production line from being interrupted by structural failure, by fabricating a plasma transmission pipe and a plasma shower pipe of stainless steel. CONSTITUTION:Microwaves generated in an oscillator 2 is led to a plasma generating furnace 6 through an isolator 3, a power monitor 4, a three-stub tuner 5, and a waveguide 8. Separately, a plasma-forming gas in a cylinder is fed through a pipe 9 to a plasma generating tube 7. The plasma generated in the furnace 6 and the tube 7 is led to a cross-shaped fluoroconnector 18 through a straight fluoroconnector 23 and a stainless plasma transmission pipe 25 and branched into directions A, B, and C. Then branched plasmas are fed to plasma inlets mounted on the vessel 1 through stainless plasma transmission pipes 26- A-C, and injected into a treatment chamber 12 from stainless shower pipes 10-1-3.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to a plasma treatment technique, and more specifically, in order to modify the surface of a product made of a synthetic resin material such as polypropylene or polyethylene, the surface of the product is treated with gold microwave discharge plasma. It relates to a processing device.

2. Description of the Related Art In the automobile manufacturing industry, it is well known that in recent years, materials for automobile parts have been shifting to synthetic resin materials that are lightweight and have excellent designs. By the way, when relatively cheap and easily available resin materials such as polypropylene and polyethylene are used, for example, in the outer panels of vehicles, the surface of the material and the coating film applied thereon have poor adhesion. However, undesirable delaminations often occur in this technical field. Generally, in order to prevent such spalling,
Techniques for completely modifying the surface of a resin material to improve the adhesion of the coating film, for example, by exposing the surface of a copper resin material to glow discharge, corona discharge, radio discharge, or microwave radiation. There are many techniques for making the surface full (introducing polar groups) or etching (improving the so-called anchor effect). Such technology is called plasma processing technology.

When performing plasma treatment, its treatment efficiency J! /,'ff
: In order to improve the performance, it is necessary to completely reduce the pressure in the reaction chamber to bring it into an X-nitrogen state, and in order to maintain this state, batch processing is currently being used. - When introducing this processing technology to a process that requires simultaneous surface treatment of large numbers of plastic material parts with various shapes, such as the production of automobile parts, it is possible to It is necessary to plasma-process a large number of objects to be treated with plasma in a single treatment. Considering these two pros and cons, recently, the plasma generation part and the reaction chamber (i.e., the processing vessel)
Plasma processing equipment using separate microwave discharges is often used.

As mentioned above, in the plasma processing using the microwave method (I), it is necessary to transport plasma from the plasma generation part outside the X processing container into the processing container, and to irradiate and diffuse the plasma using a shower tube installed inside the container.

Usually, plasma transport tubes and plasma shower tubes used to transport plasma are made of glass materials such as quartz glass and Pyrex glass, taking into consideration plasma deactivation and wall sealing. However, when plasma transport tubes and shower tubes made of such glass are applied to, for example, large-scale plasma processing equipment for processing automobile parts as described above, various problems occur. First, the length of the transport pipe section and the shower pipe section that follows it is
These pipes are easily damaged during construction, rapid depressurization, long-term vacuum sealing, etc., and are very uneconomical. If the plasma transport tube is damaged, it goes without saying that vacuum cannot be maintained and p1 plasma processing becomes impossible. Therefore, it becomes necessary to dismantle and replace the damaged pipe and its surrounding parts, and the production line must be stopped for a long time.

In view of the above-mentioned drawbacks of the prior art, it is an object of the present invention to provide a structure that does not cause cracks, damage, or other noises in the structure during construction of the device or under vacuum application, and does not require special care in handling. The purpose of the present invention is to provide a cheaper transport pipe and a plasma processing bag with shower metal that do not deactivate plasma during transport and irradiation and diffusion processes, and ultimately prevent production line stoppages caused by structural damage. .

As a result of our research to improve the plasma transport tubes and shower tubes of plasma processing equipment using microwaves, we have discovered that manufacturing these tubes from stainless steel is the most effective way to achieve the above objectives. I found money in something.

That is, the plasma processing apparatus according to the present invention is a plasma processing apparatus of a type in which a micro preliminary discharge plasma is entirely generated outside the processing container, and then the generated plasma is transported into the processing container to process the object to be processed, and the plasma processing apparatus uses microwaves. The plasma generated in a plasma generation tube (for example, a quartz glass crack) perpendicular to the quartz glass tube is transported into the processing container using a stainless steel transport tube, and then the plasma is transferred to an arbitrary number of stainless steel shower tubes that open toward the object to be processed. All features include a structure that diffuses the irradiation.

In the plasma processing apparatus of the present invention, the connecting portions, bending portions, branching portions, etc. of the generation tube and the plasma transport tube are made of Teflon (fluorocarbon resin) with a straight, elbow or cross structure.
! l! # It is recommended to configure multiple connectors. Note that such a connector is hereinafter referred to as a fluoro connector.

The invention will now be described in more detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

A typical example of the microwave discharge plasma processing apparatus of the present invention can be seen in FIGS. 1 and 2. The inside of the processing container 1, that is, the processing chamber 12 is cylindrical, and glass tubes 10.13 and 14 for plasma injection are attached to the upper part of the chamber, and exhaust ports 11.15 and 16 are attached to the lower part of the chamber, respectively. Plasma is introduced into the processing chamber 12 in the following manner as shown in the figure: Microwaves generated by the oscillator 2 are transmitted to the isolator 3, the wafer monitor 4, and the three-stub tuner 5. After that, plasma generation furnace 6
On the other hand, plasma gas in a cylinder (not shown) equipped with a noklub is supplied to the plasma generation tube 7 through a pipe 9.

The plasma generated in the plasma generation furnace 6 and the plasma generation tube 7 is transferred to the branch 70 connectors 18, 19 and 20.
branched in directions. The branched plasma then passes through seven rhythm inlet ports 20, 21 and 2 installed in the processing container 1.
2 and is injected into the processing chamber 12 in the processing container 1 through stainless steel shower pipes 10.13 and 14 for plasma irradiation connected thereto. Shower pipe 10.13 and 1
4 denotes the illustrated through hole, the processing target 6w-1 in the processing chamber 12, W
-2, W-3 and W-4 directions. Processing
jZt:l:, Exhaust port 1 connected to the processing chamber exhaust pump ((8) not shown) to maintain vacuum even during plasma processing
1. Evacuate continuously from 15 and 16. In addition, in the illustrated plasma processing apparatus, for example, a group of shower pipes is indicated as 10-1, 10-2 and 1O-3, a group of combined air ports is indicated as 11-1, 11-2 and 11-3, 20-1.20-2 and 2 for a group of plasma inlets
Although all of the indications 0-3 have been adopted, these indications are intended to fully clarify the combination of constituent means of Ha.

Details of the three-way branching of the plasma shown in FIG. 1 will be explained with reference to FIG. The plasma generated in the plasma generation furnace 6 and generation tube 7 is transferred to a straight fluoro connector 23 and a stainless steel plasma transporter 25'! il- to reach the cross-shaped fluoro connector 18.

7 o o Connector 18 VC>9 plasma is
Here, it branches into three directions shown by arrows A, B and C,
Each stainless steel plasma transport tube 26-A.

26-B and 26-0. The plasma branched in the incoming direction reaches the plasma introduction port 20-1 through a right-angled 70° connector 24As stainless steel transport blue 27-A% and a straight 70° connector 28-Ai++. The plasma branched in the B direction reaches the plasma introduction port 20-2 through the straight 70-port connector 28-BkM connected to the transport g26-H. Furthermore, C direction & U branched plasma, 1 square fluoro connector 24-C,
Stay +/, X Nφ6ilN%27-C1 and the straight 70 connector 28-Ct to reach the plasma introduction port 20-3. plasma 4 population 20-1.20
-2 and 20-3, respectively, through corresponding shower pipes (also made of stainless steel) 10-1, 10-2, and 10-3 connected thereto.
The processing chamber 12 of the processing container 1 is contaminated with one product.

Plasma generation tube 7 and plasma transfer i1? In order to make the connection with J25 clearer, the connection part is shown fully enlarged in FIG. 4. The straight 70 mm connector 23 and the wJ radius of the Teflon sleeve 27 can be understood from this figure.

Embodiment The uninvented micro limb plasma treatment f3 shown in FIG.
! Four objects to be treated (polypropylene automobile bumpers) were subjected to plasma treatment using the apparatus neck.

The complete list of the applied processing conditions is as follows: Processing chamber size: φ2000 x 2000"nm x Nitrogen pressure:
0.5 Torr Micro tympanic limb number: 2450 MH2 output crab soow Processing gas: 0□ (at 5t/min) After the treatment, the degree of the treatment effect achieved is determined by the contact angle of the bumper coating surface of the object to be treated (water wettability) ) Planned based on all standards. That is, a total of 5 μ of deionized water was dropped onto the Bambar's shin surface after plasma treatment, and the contact angle at that time was measured using a CA-A type contact angle measuring device manufactured by Kyowa Kagaku ■ at 2o0C and 50 to 60% RH (relative humidity).
It was measured with

For comparison, the material of the plasma transport pipe and shower pipe was quartz glass instead of stainless steel.
The same conventional micro-discharge plasma processing apparatus was used in the apparatus shown in the figure, and repeated cycles were carried out.

The measurement results obtained are shown in Figure 5. In the figure, graph 1 of type 2 light represents the present invention, and graph 2 of type 2 light represents the entire prior art. As is clear from these results, even if stainless steel plasma transport pipes and shower pipes are used, it is possible to fully combine the treatment effect with the conventional technology without fading, and there is no fading during the machete and replenishment process. There was no plasma deactivation. Furthermore, in the case of the uninvented plasma processing apparatus, no damage occurred to the plasma transport bone or the shower pipe, and therefore, the trouble of production stoppage, which was unavoidable in the past, could be solved.

As can be understood from the above-mentioned facts, according to the invention, it is possible to achieve completely safe plasma processing polishing without having to stop the production line, and at the same time, it is accompanied by a decrease in processing efficiency. You can offer it without having to jump.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

Fig. 1 is a longitudinal view showing an example of a micro-direct plasma processing apparatus according to the present invention; Fig. 3 is an explanatory diagram showing all the details of the apparatus shown in Fig. 1, especially the transport pipe section, and Fig. 4 is an enlarged view of the apparatus shown in Fig. 1, especially the connection part between the plasma generation tube and the transport pipe. Myung-hyeong and the fifth prisoner are illustrations that demonstrate the processing effectiveness of the present invention (horizontal axis:
Processing object position; vertical axis: contact angle). In the figure, 1 is a reaction vessel, 12 is a processing chamber, W-1°W-2,
W-3 and W-4 are objects to be treated, 25°26-A, 26-
B and 26-C and 27-A and 27-C are stainless steel plasma transport tubes, and 10-1, 10-2 and 10-3 are stainless steel plasma shower tubes. Patent Applicant Toyota Motor Corporation Patent Application Agent Patent Attorney Akira Kanmoto Patent Attorney Oro Nishidate Patent Attorneys 1) Yukio Yukio+, Yamaguchi 1H2

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A plasma processing apparatus for treating an object to be processed with microwave discharge plasma, characterized in that a plasma transport tube and a plasma shower tube are made of stainless steel.