KR20040057666A - Excimer lamp - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: An excimer lamp is provided to improve a metal electrode structure at the inside of the excimer lamp, thereby enhancing the surface reforming and cleaning effect through the excimer lamp. CONSTITUTION: A structure of a metal electrode(14) is formed as a single structure, that is, an aluminum film(14b) is coated on an SUS(Stainless Steel) plate(14a). Since the aluminum film(14b) is deposited on the SUS(Stainless Steel) plate(14a), the aluminum film(14b) and the SUS(Stainless Steel) plate(14a) maintain a complete contact structure. In the metal electrode(14), the aluminum film(14b) reflects the light discharged within the discharging film. The aluminum film(14b) is formed by using an evaporation method or a deposition method.

Description

Excimer Lamp

The present invention relates to an excimer lamp, and more particularly, to improve the surface modification and the cleaning effect by improving the metal electrode structure inside the excimer lamp used for cleaning and surface modification of organic materials in the liquid crystal display manufacturing process. Relates to an excimer lamp.

As the information society develops, the demand for display devices is increasing in various forms, and in recent years, liquid crystal display devices (LCDs), plasma display panels (PDPs), electro luminescent displays (ELDs), and vacuum fluorescent (VFD) Various flat panel display devices such as displays have been studied, and some of them are already used as display devices in various devices.

Among them, liquid crystal display (LCD) is the most widely used, replacing the CRT (Cathode Ray Tube) for mobile image display because of its excellent image quality, light weight, thinness, and low power consumption. In addition to the mobile type of use such as a monitor, a variety of developments have been made for televisions for receiving and displaying broadcast signals, monitors for computers, and the like.

As described above, although various technical advances have been made in order for a liquid crystal display device to serve as a screen display device in various fields, the task of improving the image quality as a screen display device is often arranged with the above characteristics and advantages. . Therefore, in order to use a liquid crystal display device in various parts as a general screen display device, the key to development is how much high definition images such as high definition, high brightness, and large area can be realized while maintaining the characteristics of light weight, thinness, and low power consumption. It can be said.

The manufacturing process of the liquid crystal display device includes a TFT array process for forming switching elements for applying a pixel unit and a color R, G, and B array for implementing colors. ) Can be divided into a color filter process for forming a liquid crystal process and a liquid crystal process for forming a liquid crystal cell between a TFT substrate and a color filter substrate. In the manufacturing technology of the TFT substrate or the color filter substrate, The process of forming a TFT-array is similar to that of a silicon semiconductor manufacturing process. That is, it consists of processes such as thin film deposition, photolithography, etching, etc., and includes inspection for checking results and abnormalities and cleaning to maintain cleanliness before and after each process. .

The above unit processes are performed in a series of repeated processes to form respective layers, and are closely related to the before and after processes. The difference from the silicon semiconductor process is that in semiconductor manufacturing, a silicon wafer is processed through a complicated process to make a device, but in TFT-LCD manufacturing, the size of the LCD screen is determined, and the required screen size is rather large. Since is increasing, the production quantity can be increased by increasing the size of the substrate. Optimization of TFT-LCD product characteristics can be achieved when individual processes are harmoniously integrated based on the optimization of unit process conditions, so the stability and development of the unit process is the beginning of TFT-LCD manufacturing.

In the liquid crystal display device manufacturing process as described above, cleaning equipment is used for cleaning and surface modification of the organic material. Such cleaning equipment requires a discharge lamp emitting strong ultraviolet rays for cleaning and surface modification of the organic material. In such a discharge lamp, a dielectric barrier discharge type excimer lamp (hereinafter referred to as an excimer lamp) is mainly used.

Hereinafter, a conventional excimer lamp will be described with reference to the accompanying drawings.

1 is a cross-sectional view illustrating a structure of a conventional excimer lamp, and FIG. 2 is a perspective view illustrating a metal electrode structure of a conventional excimer lamp.

As shown in FIG. 1, a conventional excimer lamp includes a discharge container 1 including an inner tube 2 and an outer tube 3, a metal electrode 4 formed under the inner tube 2, and the It consists of the metal mesh electrode 5 formed in the upper part of the outer side pipe 3. A discharge space 7 filled with discharge gas is formed inside the discharge vessel 1, and a base 6 supports the components of the excimer lamp.

In more detail about the discharge vessel 1, the discharge vessel 1 is substantially cylindrical in shape, and is formed by the inner tube 2 and the outer tube 3 disposed coaxially around its central axis. It is composed. The ring-shaped discharge space 7 is filled with a discharge gas for forming excimer molecules by dielectric barrier discharge. At least a portion of the discharge vessel 1 also serves as a dielectric for dielectric barrier discharge, and at least a portion of the discharge gas is transparent to light discharged from the excimer molecule, and the discharge vessel is made of light-transmissive glass or the like. It is comprised so that extraction to the outside of (1) is possible.

In addition, a metal electrode 4 and a metal mesh electrode 5 are formed on the inner surface of the inner tube 2 and the outer surface of the outer tube 3 constituting the discharge vessel 1, and the double metal electrode 4 is formed. As shown in FIG. 2, a round structure is formed of a close contact structure of a stainless steel (SUS) plate 4a and an aluminum (Al) plate 4b.

This close contact structure is achieved by a round treatment through the presses of the SUS plate 4a and the aluminum plate 4b, followed by applying a press with heat treatment to the two substrates. The metal electrode 4 thus formed maintains a close structure and is inserted into the discharge vessel, and the aluminum plate 4b of the inserted metal electrode 4 reflects light discharged in the discharge space 7. It will act as a reflector.

The conventional excimer lamp having such a structure is filled in the discharge space 7 when an external power source (not shown) having high frequency and high voltage is applied from the outside between the metal electrode 4 and the metal network electrode 5 from the outside. The discharge gas operates while discharging light.

In addition, as described above, since the excimer lamp generates heat by discharge, the excimer lamp is provided with cooling means (not shown) such as cooling water flowing along the inside of the inner tube 2 to prevent the discharge container 1 from being excessively overheated. Consists of.

However, such a conventional excimer lamp has the following problems.

First, since the SUS plate and the aluminum forming the metal electrode have different melting points and elastic moduli, it is difficult to press the rounding process to have the same curvature. In addition, close contact between the two substrates after the rounding process is difficult, and there is a difficulty in inserting the work into the discharge vessel while maintaining complete adhesion.

Second, if the two substrates are not closely adhered to each other after the assembly of the excimer lamp, there is an arcing phenomenon, a sparking phenomenon caused by the sparking of the incomplete connection of the metal electrode, causing the wear of the metal electrode and the overall excimer lamp. Decreases its lifespan.

Third, when the two substrates constituting the metal electrode are not in close contact with each other, the illumination effect of the excimer lamp is reduced, thereby weakening the cleaning effect.

The present invention has been made to solve the above problems, the object of the present invention is to improve the metal electrode structure inside the excimer lamp to improve the surface modification and cleaning effect through the excimer lamp, to provide an excimer lamp to simplify the operation have.

1 is a cross-sectional view showing the structure of a conventional excimer lamp.

2 is a perspective view illustrating a metal electrode structure of a conventional excimer lamp.

3 is a cross-sectional view showing the structure of an excimer lamp according to the present invention.

4 is a perspective view showing a metal electrode structure of the excimer lamp according to the present invention.

5 is a cross-sectional view showing the operation of the excimer lamp according to the present invention.

Explanation of symbols for main parts of the drawings

11 dielectric tube 12 inner tube

13 outer tube 14 metal electrode

14a: SUS plate 14b: aluminum film

15 metal mesh electrode 16 base

17: discharge space

An excimer lamp according to the present invention for achieving the above object is a dielectric tube filled with a discharge gas therein and consisting of an inner tube and an outer tube, a metal mesh electrode configured on an outer surface of the outer tube, and the inner side. It is configured on the inside of the tube, characterized in that it comprises a metal electrode formed by laminating a SUS plate and an aluminum film.

Hereinafter, an excimer lamp according to the present invention will be described with reference to the accompanying drawings.

3 is a cross-sectional view showing a structure of an excimer lamp according to the present invention, Figure 4 is a perspective view showing a metal electrode structure of the excimer lamp according to the present invention.

As shown in FIG. 3, the excimer lamp according to the present invention includes a dielectric tube 11 having a dual structure including an inner tube 12 and an outer tube 13 made of quartz glass. In addition, a metal electrode 14 is positioned inside the inner tube 12, and a mesh-shaped metal mesh electrode 15 and a base 16 made of ceramic and aluminum are disposed on an outer surface of the outer tube 13. Are located respectively.

In addition, in the ring-shaped discharge space 17 surrounded by the inner tube 12 and the outer tube 13 arranged coaxially, xenon (Xe) and helium (Xe) forming excimer molecules by dielectric barrier discharge is formed. Discharge gas such as He) is filled.

The structure of the metal electrode 14 is formed in a single structure in which an aluminum film 14b is coated on the SUS plate 14a, as shown in FIG. This structure is different from the structure in which the SUS plate 4a and the aluminum plate 4b, which are the structure of the metal electrode 4 of the conventional excimer lamp, are separately manufactured and closely adhered by a press. The aluminum film 14b is disposed on the SUS plate 14a. ) Is deposited to maintain a completely close structure.

In addition, in the metal electrode 14 of the above structure, the aluminum film 14b serves as a reflector to reflect light discharged in the discharge space 17.

In addition, the aluminum film 14b is formed by using a film deposition method such as ion beam evaporation, which is an atom or molecule by evaporating a material to be deposited in a vacuum chamber (not shown). It is a method of forming a film by being deposited on the substrate surface in units. The ion beam deposition method vaporizes a vaporized phase through a phase transition of a material to be evaporated by evaporation or sublimation from a solid or liquid state, and vaporizes atoms or molecules from an evaporation source to a substrate. And may be described as physical steps such as depositing the particles on the substrate and changing the rearrangement or bonding state of the deposited particles on the substrate surface.

However, it is understood that the aluminum film 14b as described above may be formed by various methods in addition to the ion beam deposition method.

The operation principle of the excimer lamp according to the present invention having the metal electrode 14 formed as described above will be briefly described as follows.

5 is a cross-sectional view showing the operation of the excimer lamp according to the present invention.

As shown in FIG. 5, when the high voltage AC power source 19 is applied to the metal electrode 14 and the metal mesh electrode 15 of the excimer lamp, the outer tube 13 forming the dielectric tube 11 and Dielectric Barrier Discharge (DBD) plasma 20 is generated between the inner tubes 12. This discharge plasma 20 contains electrons of high energy and has a characteristic of instantaneously disappearing.

The atoms of the discharge gas in the discharge space 17 are excited by the discharge plasma 20, at which time the atoms of the discharge gas are instantaneously excited. When returning to the original state (base state) from this excimer state, the excimer-specific spectrum emits light. Since the emission spectrum can be changed by changing the charged discharge gas, various discharge gases can be used to obtain a desired wavelength. As an example, the xenon (Xe) discharge gas emits monochromatic light 18 having a center wavelength of 172 nm.

The excimer lamp according to the present invention as described above has the following effects.

First, by depositing an aluminum film on the SUS plate to form a metal electrode of the excimer lamp, it is possible to simplify the assembly work of the difficult excimer lamp to be inserted into the dielectric tube while maintaining the close contact structure of the two conventional electrodes.

Second, the metal electrode inside the excimer lamp, which is composed of a close contact structure of the SUS plate and the aluminum plate rounded by the conventional press equipment, is improved to a structure in which an aluminum film is deposited on the SUS plate, resulting in incomplete adhesion between the SUS plate and the aluminum plate. Arcing phenomenon can be prevented.

Third, by depositing a uniform aluminum film on the SUS plate to form a metal electrode, the reflection performance of the aluminum film serving as a reflector is improved, so that the illuminance of the excimer lamp can be improved.

Fourth, when aluminum is deposited on the SUS plate, a separate aluminum plate may be manufactured, thus eliminating the need for a rounding press having the same shape as the SUS plate, thereby simplifying the work.

Claims (2)

A dielectric tube filled with a discharge gas therein and consisting of an inner tube and an outer tube, A metal mesh electrode configured on an outer surface of the outer tube, The excimer lamp is configured on the inner side of the inner tube, and comprises a metal electrode formed by stacking an SUS plate and an aluminum film. The method of claim 1, The metal electrode is an excimer lamp, characterized in that the aluminum is uniformly formed on the SUS plate.