KR20130053826A - Apparatus for vapor deposition of organic thin film - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: An organic thin film deposition apparatus is provided to prevent the deterioration of a thin film by using an ion generation unit and a process chamber. CONSTITUTION: A load lock chamber provides a vacuum condition. A buffer chamber(130) stabilizes the vacuum condition. A process chamber(140) sputters an organic thin film on a glass substrate. A transfer chamber(150) transfers the glass substrate to the process chamber. A carrier part transfers and returns the glass substrate.

Description

[0001] The present invention relates to an apparatus for depositing an organic thin film,

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an organic thin film deposition apparatus, and more particularly, to an organic thin film deposition apparatus capable of preventing thermal deformation or degradation of a glass substrate due to high-temperature plasma.

Description of the Related Art [0002] Lightweight thin flat panel displays are widely used as image display devices used in personal computers, portable terminals, and various portable information devices.

Such flat panel display devices include a liquid crystal display, a light emitting display, a plasma display panel, and a field emission display.

Here, the flat panel display devices are subjected to a thin film forming process for forming a plurality of thin films on a substrate. In the thin film forming process, a plurality of thin films can be formed by performing a thermal deposition process, a sputtering process, or the like. Particularly, the thermal deposition process has problems such as low material utilization efficiency and uneven thickness. In recent years, Forming process is being carried out.

The above-described sputtering apparatus includes a vacuumable chamber, a substrate plate for fixing the substrate inside the chamber, a target provided on one side of the chamber, a target plate for fixing the target on the backside of the target, and a magnet module. Here, the target may be a material to be deposited on the substrate, for example, indium tin oxide (ITO), copper, aluminum, molybdenum, or the like.

In the sputtering apparatus constructed as described above, ions of argon or the like collide with negative targets at high speed on a plasma generated by an external power source so that the atoms of the targets protrude out to be deposited on the substrate.

However, in the above-described conventional sputtering apparatus, deterioration phenomenon occurs in the organic light emitting diode (OLED) due to ion and electron collision due to the plasma formed in the chamber.

In addition, it is pointed out that a defect in the product occurs due to a deterioration of the performance of the organic light emitting diode device due to the deterioration phenomenon.

In addition, there is a problem of inefficient use of the equipment, in which only a part of the target part is used and discarded due to a specific area where the magnetic field is strong through the magnet module, that is, the Eroden zone.

An object of the present invention is to provide an apparatus for depositing an organic thin film using an ion generating unit to prevent deterioration of characteristics of an organic thin film by plasma.

According to an aspect of the present invention, there is provided an apparatus for depositing an organic thin film on a glass substrate transferred in an inline manner, the apparatus comprising: a load / unload unit for supplying and discharging a glass substrate; A load lock chamber for receiving the glass substrate from the load / unload portion and providing a vacuum state for the organic thin film deposition process; A buffer chamber for stabilizing a vacuum state provided from the load lock chamber; A process chamber having an ion generating module and sputtering an organic thin film on the glass substrate transferred from the buffer chamber; A transfer chamber for transferring the glass substrate on which the organic thin film is formed to the process chamber; And a carrier portion provided below each of the chambers for transporting or transporting the glass substrate.

Wherein the ion generating module includes: an ion generating unit for generating a plasma inside and extracting ions in the plasma to accelerate the plasma; And a target portion to which accelerated ions from the ion generating portion reach.

The target portion may include a target member made of a material to be deposited and a tilt member for adjusting the angle of the target member toward the glass substrate.

The tilt member can adjust the tilt angle in the range of 10 to 90 degrees.

The ion generating module may be applied with a voltage ranging from 0.5 kV to 4 kV.

The ion generating module may be supplied with a current in a range of 10 mA to 1A.

The buffer chamber may include a first heating unit to preheat the glass substrate before the deposition process is performed in the process chamber.

The transfer chamber may include a second heating unit to preheat the glass substrate before another deposition process is performed in the process chamber.

According to the organic thin film deposition apparatus of the present invention,

First, deterioration of the organic thin film due to plasma can be prevented by using the ion generating unit,

Second, since the magnet module mounted on the conventional sputter is unnecessary, the facility is simplified,

Third, the use efficiency of the target portion increases, and the maintenance cost for the target portion can be reduced.

1 is a plan view schematically showing an organic thin film deposition apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention.
2 is a side sectional view schematically showing the ion generating module shown in Fig.
3 is a graph showing the thickness deposited on the x-axis on the glass substrate shown in Fig.
4 is a graph showing the thickness deposited on the y-axis on the glass substrate shown in Fig.

Hereinafter, preferred embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings. The terms and words used in the specification and claims should not be construed to be limited to ordinary or dictionary meanings, and the inventor should appropriately define the concept of the term to describe its invention in the best way possible It should be construed in the meaning and concept consistent with the technical idea of the present invention.

Generally, a sputtering technique using a plasma is widely used for coating a thin film in a manufacturing field of a semiconductor, a liquid crystal display (LCD), a plasma display panel (PDP), a projection TV, It is divided into batch type, inter-back and in-line according to loading and unloading methods.

In the batch type sputtering method, a substrate is directly loaded into a deposition chamber to form a thin film on the surface of the substrate. The inter-back sputtering has a sub-chamber for performing loading and unloading of a substrate into a deposition chamber, and a thin film is formed on the surface of the substrate while loading and unloading the substrate by the sub-chamber.

In the inline sputtering method, a loading chamber and an unloading chamber are placed in a deposition chamber in an inline manner, a substrate is loaded by a loading chamber, a thin film is coated on a surface of the substrate, and the substrate is loaded by an unloading chamber. Meanwhile, in the manufacturing fields of LCD and PDP, in-line sputtering is used for continuously coating a silica (SiO2) film as an insulating film on the surface of a glass substrate and an ITO (Indium Tin Oxide) film as a conductive film.

The apparatus for depositing an organic thin film according to the present invention can deposit the above-described batch-type sputtering method, but it is more preferable that it is formed by an in-line sputtering method. Therefore, the following description will be made on the basis of the in-line sputtering method.

FIG. 1 is a plan view schematically showing an organic film deposition apparatus 100 according to an embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. 2 is a side sectional view schematically showing the ion generating module 141 shown in FIG.

The organic film deposition apparatus 100 includes a load / unload unit 110 for supplying and discharging a glass substrate 10, a load lock chamber 120 for providing a vacuum state, A process chamber 140 in which a process of sputtering an organic thin film 11 is performed on the glass substrate 10 and a process chamber 140 in which the organic thin film 11 is formed, A transfer chamber 150 for transferring the glass substrate 10, and a carrier unit 160 for transferring or transporting the glass substrate 10 to each of the chambers.

The loading / unloading unit 110 loads and unloads the glass substrate 10. The glass substrate 10 is seated on the carrier 160 and the carrier 160 is rotated by the rotation of a conveying means such as a cable or a bare such that the glass substrate 10 is placed in the load- (120).

Here, the deposition rate of the organic thin film 11 and the thickness of the organic thin film 11 can be controlled according to the conveyance speed of the glass substrate 10 on the carrier part 160.

The load lock chamber 120 transfers the glass substrate 10 between the load / unload portion 110 and the transfer chamber 150. That is, when the glass substrate 10 is transferred from the load / unload unit 110 to the load lock chamber 120, the inside of the load lock chamber 120 is depressurized through a vacuum pump (not shown) do.

In addition, the load lock chamber 120 transfers the glass substrate 10 having been deposited to the load / unload portion 110.

The buffer chamber 130 is provided with at least one or more vacuum pumps (not shown) to be in a medium vacuum state and is arranged between each of the chambers and the chamber before the glass substrate 10 is transferred to the process chamber 140 And is responsible for buffering by the pressure difference formed.

The buffer chamber 130 has a function of transporting the glass substrate 10 having been subjected to the deposition process to the load lock chamber 120 and is transferred to the process chamber 140, A first heating unit 131 is provided in the buffer chamber 130 for preheating the substrate 10 to increase the deposition efficiency in the deposition process of the organic thin film 11. [

The first heating unit 131 is formed of a plurality of heating wires formed along the feeding direction of the glass substrate 10, for example. Since each of the plurality of heat lines can be individually controlled, the preheating temperature of the glass substrate 10 can be controlled to 250 ° C at the maximum. The glass substrate 10 preheated through the first heating unit 131 is transferred to the process chamber 140.

The process chamber 140 includes an ion generating module 141 for sputtering the organic thin film 11 on the glass substrate 10.

The ion generating module 141 includes an ion generating part 142 that generates plasma and generates ions to be extracted and accelerated by the plasma and a target part 144 to which ions extracted from the ion generating part 142 reach .

The target portion 144 includes a target member 145 made of a material to be vapor deposited and a tilt member 146 configured to adjust the angle of the target member 145 toward the glass substrate 10.

When the process gas is supplied, a plasma is formed inside the ion generating part 142. The ions in the plasma are extracted by the voltage and accelerated toward the target part 144.

At this time, the accelerated ions collide with the target member 145 provided on the target portion 144, and the target material formed over the entire surface of the target member 145 is sputtered.

Then, the target material sputtered from the target portion 144 is deposited while the glass substrate 10 is being transferred while maintaining a set velocity in a state where the glass substrate 10 is mounted on the carrier.

At this time, the transporting speed of the glass substrate 10 is increased in proportion to the deposition thickness of the target material, the deposition region is formed in the direction in which the target portion 144 irradiates ions, the deposition process can be performed so as to have a uniform thickness on the x-axis and the y-axis.

Therefore, by separating the space between the organic thin film 11 deposited on the glass substrate 10 and the plasma formed by the ion generating part 142, the organic thin film 11 is prevented from being directly exposed to the plasma state Therefore, it is possible to prevent the collision of ions and electrons in the plasma with the organic thin film 11, thereby preventing the argon (Ar) ions from being collided with the organic thin film 11 after being collided with the target material, However, it is possible to prevent the organic thin film 11 from being damaged by deterioration due to plasma.

The tilt member 146 can be rotated in the range of 10 to 90 degrees along the traveling direction of the glass substrate 10, and the rotation angle can be manually or automatically driven. At this time, the tilt member 146 is preferably set to maintain a set angle of 45 °.

It is preferable that a voltage in the range of 0.5 kV to 4 kV is applied to the ion generating module 141 and a current in the range of 10 mA to 1 A is applied to the ion generating module 141.

The transfer chamber 150 has a function of transferring the glass substrate 10 having the organic thin film 11 deposited thereon to the process chamber 140 again. Another deposition and coating process may be performed in the process chamber 140 and may be performed through the load / unload unit 110 through the buffer chamber 130 and the load lock chamber 120 without any additional process. It may be exported.

The transfer chamber 150 includes a second heating unit 151 for preheating the glass substrate 10 before another deposition process is performed in the process chamber 140. The second heating unit 151 may be provided in a configuration similar to that of the first heating unit 131.

In addition, a separate cooling unit (not shown) is installed in the process chamber 140 to cool the accumulated heat energy for a long period of time, so that moisture and the like remaining in the process chamber 140 can be removed.

Hereinafter, the operation and effect of the organic film deposition apparatus 100 according to an embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

3 is a graph showing the thickness deposited on the x-axis on the glass substrate 10 shown in Fig. 2, and Fig. 4 is a graph showing the thickness deposited on the y-axis on the glass substrate 10 shown in Fig. Hereinafter, the same reference numerals as those used in the following description denote the same elements.

1 to 4, the thickness of the organic thin film 11 deposited on the upper surface of the glass substrate 10 in a state where the glass substrate 10 is stationary on the carrier unit 160 is shown.

Fig. 3 shows the deposition thickness of the x-axis in the direction in which the glass substrate 10 is transported in the anteroposterior direction. The uniformity of the x-axis deposition thickness was found to be about 21.9%, which is a value measured in a state where the carrier section 160 is stopped. Therefore, since the carrier section 160 has a lower value during driving, It is expected to have a thickness.

4 shows the deposition thickness of the y-axis of the glass substrate 10, that is, the thickness deposited in the transverse direction of the ion generating portion 142. As shown in Fig. The uniformity of the deposition thickness on the y-axis shows an excellent result of 2.1% with respect to the center area of about 600 mm.

Therefore, since the plasma generated in the ion generating part 142 and the space in which the organic thin film 11 is disposed are separated to prevent the organic thin film 11 from being directly exposed to the plasma, It is possible to prevent the organic thin film 11 from colliding with the thin film 11 and to prevent the organic thin film 11 from being damaged by deterioration due to the plasma.

In addition, there is no need to use a magnet module as in the conventional sputtering equipment, thereby reducing the manufacturing cost and effectively using the target portion 144.

While the present invention has been described with reference to exemplary embodiments, it is to be understood that the invention is not limited to the disclosed exemplary embodiments, but, on the contrary, is intended to cover various modifications and equivalent arrangements included within the spirit and scope of the appended claims. Accordingly, the true scope of the present invention should be determined by the technical idea of the appended claims.

100: organic thin film deposition apparatus 110: load / unload unit
120: load lock chamber 130: buffer chamber
140: process chamber 141: ion generating module
142: ion generator 144:
145: target member 146: tilt member
150: Transfer chamber 160: Carrier part
10: glass substrate 11: organic thin film

Claims (8)

An organic thin film deposition apparatus for depositing an organic thin film on a glass substrate transferred in an inline manner,
A rod / unload section for feeding and unloading the glass substrate;
A load lock chamber for receiving the glass substrate from the load / unload portion and providing a vacuum state for the organic thin film deposition process;
A buffer chamber for stabilizing a vacuum state provided from the load lock chamber;
A process chamber having an ion generating module and sputtering an organic thin film on the glass substrate transferred from the buffer chamber;
A transfer chamber for transferring the glass substrate on which the organic thin film is formed to the process chamber; And
A carrier portion provided below each of the chambers and adapted to transport or convey the glass substrate;
And an organic thin film deposition apparatus. The method according to claim 1,
The ion generating module includes:
Wherein the ion generating module includes: an ion generating unit for generating a plasma inside and extracting ions in the plasma to accelerate the plasma; And
A target portion through which ions accelerated from the ion generating portion reach;
And an organic thin film deposition apparatus. The method of claim 2,
The target portion,
A target member made of a material to be deposited; and a tilt member for adjusting the angle of the target member toward the glass substrate. The method of claim 3,
Wherein the tilt member is capable of adjusting a rotation angle in a range of 10 to 90 degrees. The method according to any one of claims 2 to 4,
Wherein the ion generating module is applied with a voltage in a range of 0.5 kV to 4 kV. The method according to any one of claims 2 to 4,
Wherein the ion generating module is supplied with a current in a range of 10 mA to 1 A. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 4,
The buffer chamber includes:
And a first heating unit for preheating the glass substrate before the deposition process is performed in the process chamber. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 4,
Wherein the transfer chamber comprises:
And a second heating unit for preheating the glass substrate before another deposition process is performed in the process chamber.

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