KR20140052348A

KR20140052348A - An e-textile evaporation apparatus

Info

Publication number: KR20140052348A
Application number: KR1020120118366A
Authority: KR
Inventors: 한정인
Original assignee: 동국대학교 산학협력단
Priority date: 2012-10-24
Filing date: 2012-10-24
Publication date: 2014-05-07

Abstract

The present invention relates to an electronic textile evaporation apparatus which comprises a vacuum chamber; a driving unit for driving a textile substrate within the vacuum chamber; a rotary holder for supporting the textile substrate and rotating the textile substrate at a predetermined speed; and an evaporation source which is arranged in a lower part of inside of the vacuum chamber for evaporating a deposition material.

Description

An e-textile evaporation apparatus

The present invention relates to an electronic fiber (e-Textile, e-Fiber, e-Fabric) deposition equipment used in smart electronic apparel, wearable computing devices, wearable displays and the like.

With the rapid growth of IT technology in recent years, the tendency to obtain information anytime, anywhere easily becomes stronger and more common. As it is becoming a part of our lives to watch TV and movies while carrying a mobile device such as a smart mobile phone, a new portable information communication device that is thinner, lighter and more portable is required. Furthermore, the design is flexible, flexible, and not broken even when dropped. Flexible, foldable, folded or rollable bendable, lighter fiber-based wearable electronic devices are available for e-Textile, e-Fiber ). Recently, as the convergence of fiber and IT technology accelerates, the possibility of wearable electronic products (Wearable Electronics) is increasing.

In line with this trend, we have developed a thin, flexible electronic fiber (e-Texile, e-Fiber) that is used in smart electronic apparel, wearable computing devices, wearable displays, Techniques for forming an electronic device by depositing or coating a single thin film or a composite thin film with a uniform thickness of a functional material of an insulator have been actively studied.

The conventional methods such as sputtering, CVD, and e-beam evaporator used in conventional semiconductors or displays are suitable for forming a uniform thin film on a flat circular substrate or a rectangular wafer. However, as shown in FIG. 1, It is impossible to uniformly deposit and coat a functional material on a fiber.

The present coating method includes the dipping method shown in FIG. 2, but it is difficult to control the thickness of the coating film and particularly to form a very thin uniform film, the coating is not uniform in its entirety, the equipment is complicated and the coating liquid is deposited on the roller portion to obtain a cylindrical coating And difficult problems.

KR 2011-0038343 (publication number)

Disclosure of Invention Technical Problem [8] Accordingly, the present invention has been made to solve the above-mentioned problems, and it is an object of the present invention to deposit a functional material on a fiber substrate with uniform thickness using a rotation holder rotating the fiber substrate at a constant speed.

The present invention relates to a vacuum chamber comprising: a vacuum chamber; Traveling means for traveling the fiber substrate in the vacuum chamber; A rotation holder for supporting the fiber substrate and rotating the fiber substrate at a constant speed; And an evaporation source disposed inside the vacuum chamber to evaporate the evaporation material.

According to the present invention, a functional material can be deposited on a fiber substrate to a uniform thickness using an electronic fiber deposition apparatus.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS Fig. 1 is a view showing a thin cylindrical electronic fiber on which a functional material is deposited. Fig.
2 is a diagram showing a prior art.
3 is a view showing an electronic fiber deposition apparatus according to the present invention.
4 is a view showing a rotation holder in an electronic fiber deposition apparatus according to the present invention.

The vacuum chamber of the present invention may have a shutter for blocking the evaporated material evaporated in the evaporation source.

Further, the rotary holder of the present invention includes at least two rotary doors and is spaced apart from each other. The rotary holder may include a driving motor for rotational driving.

The evaporation source located in the vacuum chamber of the present invention includes: an accommodating portion in which the evaporation material is accommodated; A heating unit for heating the deposition material in the accommodation unit to discharge the vaporized deposition material from the accommodation unit toward the fiber substrate; And a power supply unit for applying power to the heating unit.

In a specific aspect, the vacuum chamber may further include a vacuum pump for evacuating the inside of the vacuum chamber, and the vacuum pump may include a roughing pump and a turbo pump.

The present invention also provides an electronic fiber deposition method using an electronic fiber deposition apparatus.

Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings. The sizes and shapes of the components shown in the drawings may be exaggerated for clarity and convenience. In addition, terms defined in consideration of the configuration and operation of the present invention may be changed according to the intention or custom of the user, the operator. Definitions of these terms should be based on the content of this specification.

It is to be understood that within the scope of the appended claims, the invention may be practiced otherwise than as specifically described within the spirit and scope of the appended claims. Of course.

An electronic fiber deposition apparatus 100 according to an embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to FIGS. 1 to 4. FIG.

Fig. 1 is a view showing a thin cylindrical electronic fiber on which a functional material is deposited, Fig. 2 is a drawing showing a conventional technique, Fig. 3 is a view showing an electronic fiber deposition apparatus according to the present invention, Fig. 7 is a view showing a rotation holder in a fiber deposition apparatus.

3 to 4, an electronic fiber deposition apparatus 100 according to an embodiment of the present invention includes a vacuum chamber 110, a traveling means (not shown), a rotation holder 130, and an evaporation source 140 .

The vacuum chamber 110 of the electronic fiber deposition apparatus 100 of the present invention has a predetermined internal space and includes a vacuum pump 150 for evacuating the inside of the vacuum chamber 110 outside the vacuum chamber 110 . More specifically, the vacuum pump 150 may be a roughing pump, a turbo pump, an ion pump, a cry pump, or a diffusion pump. For example, a roughing pump and a turbo pump are used.

In addition, traveling means is disposed in the upper part of the vacuum chamber 110, so that the fiber substrate 120 can be driven, and the present invention can be continuously processed by the traveling means. The running means of the present invention may be in the form of a roll on which generally used fibers are wound.

Next, the electronic fiber deposition apparatus 100 of the present invention includes a rotation holder 130 that can physically hold and rotate while depositing thin or long fibers or other objects inside the vacuum chamber 110 . The rotating holder 130 may be a magnetic holding mechanism as well as a general rotating holder 130 that is simply mechanically or physically holding the rotating holder 130. 4, the rotation holder 130 includes a driving motor that supports the fiber substrate 120 and performs rotation driving. The rotation holder 130 is configured to rotate at a constant speed while holding the fiber substrate 120 have. Therefore, assuming that the evaporation material 141 evaporating at the evaporation source 140 is evaporated at a constant rate per unit time, the amount deposited on the fiber substrate 120 becomes uniform, and a uniform deposition layer can be formed. In addition, the coating or deposition thickness can be easily controlled according to the rotation speed.

The evaporation source 140 may be disposed at a lower portion of the vacuum chamber 110 in the electronic fiber deposition apparatus 100 of the present invention. The evaporation source 140 is a component that evaporates the deposition material at a constant rate while retaining a certain amount of the deposition material 141 therein. In an embodiment of the present invention, an evaporation source 140 is disposed below the vacuum chamber 110, which is opposite to the rotation holder 130, as shown in FIG. Accordingly, the evaporation material 141 evaporated in the evaporation source 140 is diffused upward and deposited on the fiber substrate 120.

Here, the deposition material 141 refers to a functional material to be deposited on the fiber substrate 120.

More specifically, the evaporation source 140 may be made of a material having excellent high-temperature stability and high electrical resistance such as tungsten, molybdenum, graphite boat, or crucible. The evaporation source 140 contains an organic material such as Al or Ni to be deposited or an organic light emitting material. When electricity is supplied from the external power supply unit 142, tungsten, molybdenum, graphite boat, The crucible is heated and the inorganic or organic material is sublimated and deposited on the fiber substrate 120 installed on the upper part of the vacuum chamber 110. The electric resistance of tungsten, molybdenum, graphite boat or crucible is very large, so that electricity from the outside can be heated to a very high temperature by resistance heat (joule heat). The plurality of evaporation sources 140 may alternatively be formed by alternately deopposing different materials on the fiber substrate 120 to perform multi-layer functional deposition, Layer or multi-layer deposition.

In order to evaporate the evaporation material 141 at a constant rate in the state of holding the evaporation material 141, the evaporation source 140 includes a receiving part, a heating part, and a power supply part 142. First, the accommodating portion is a container capable of holding a certain amount of the evaporation material 141. Therefore, the container may be made of a chemically stable material that does not react with the deposition material 141, and may be made of a thermally stable material to withstand the heat transmitted by the heating unit. Specifically, the receiving portion may be made of tungsten, molybdenum, or graphite.

Next, the heating unit is a component that heats the storage unit to evaporate the deposition material 141 held in the storage unit. Therefore, the heating portion is formed with an insertion groove having a size that allows the receiving portion to be inserted therein, and a heating wire capable of heating the receiving groove is formed in the insertion groove. Therefore, heat is applied to the receiving portion through the heating wire.

Meanwhile, the evaporation source 140 having such a structure may be provided in the electronic fiber deposition apparatus 100 according to an embodiment of the present invention, or a plurality of evaporation sources 140 may be provided.

In addition, the apparatus for depositing the electronic fiber 100 of the present invention may include a power supply unit 142 for supplying power to the heating unit.

In addition, a shutter 111 may be provided between the fiber substrate 120 and the evaporation source 140 in the electronic fiber deposition apparatus 100 of the present invention. The shutter 111 blocks the evaporation material 141 evaporated from the evaporation source 140 so that after the fiber substrate 120 completes its travel to a desired position, the shutter 111 is opened to start deposition. When the deposition is completed, the deposition can be stopped and the deposition can be stopped. The shutter 111 may be driven manually or may be a servo motor.

In other respects, the deposition may be terminated by sublimation or evaporation of the deposition material 141 or by shutting off external power. The shutter 111 may be used when the evaporation source 140 is two or more evaporation sources 140 and one evaporation source 140 is used alternately or simultaneously.

According to an aspect of the present invention, there is provided an electronic fiber deposition method including: mounting a fiber substrate on a rotating holder; Rotating the rotation holder (130); Evaporating the evaporation material (141) of the evaporation source (140) to form a thin film on the fiber substrate (120); Detecting evaporation amount of the evaporation material (141); .

More specifically, in the step of rotating the rotation holder 130, the traveling means is driven to occur simultaneously with the traveling of the fiber substrate 120. [

The step of evaporating the evaporation material 141 of the evaporation source 140 to form a thin film on the fiber substrate 120 may be performed by preheating the evaporation source 140 with the shutter 111 blocking the inlet of the evaporation source 140 A step of heating the evaporation source 140 to evaporate the evaporation material 141 while maintaining the evaporation temperature; opening the shutter 111 to evaporate the evaporation material 141 to the fiber substrate 120; . More specifically, the heating unit is operated by using the power supply unit 142, and the storage unit is heated so that evaporation of the evaporation material 141 is actively performed. At this time, the evaporation rate of the evaporation material 141 can be controlled by controlling the supply of the external power source by measuring the temperature of the storage portion.

In an embodiment of the present invention, an analyzer such as a thickness gauge or a mass attacher is attached in the pre-heating step and the deposition step to detect the amount and state of the evaporation material 141 evaporated in the evaporation source 140 in real time. Using the data for the detected evaporation amount, the thickness of the thin film deposited on the fiber substrate 120 can be directly measured.

When the deposition is completed, the shutter 111 is shut off to block the evaporation source 140, and the fiber substrate 120 is discharged.

In one embodiment of the present invention, thermal deposition is shown, but any conventional deposition method such as CVD (Chemical Vapor Deposition), sputtering, and e-beam evaporation may be used. In addition, the rotating fiber substrate 120 can be combined and applied regardless of energy sources such as plasma, heat, laser, and light energy. In addition, it can be applied to epitaxial fabrication methods such as MOCVD (Metallo-Organic Chemical Vapor Deposition), MBE (Molecular Beam Epitaxial), and ALD, so that a very fine thin film can be deposited. In addition, ICP-CVD and ICP sputtering by the ICP (Inductive Coupling Plasma) coupling method recently developed can be combined with the rotating fiber substrate 120.

Functional electronic fibers can be manufactured by combining all the deposition methods with the portions of the rotating fiber substrate 120.

The embodiments described above are intended to illustrate the contents of the present invention and are not intended to limit the scope of the present invention. Embodiments of the present invention are provided to more fully describe the present invention to those skilled in the art.

100: Electronic fiber deposition apparatus
110: vacuum chamber 111: shutter
120: fiber substrate
130: Rotary holder
140: evaporation source 141: deposition material
142: Power supply
150: Vacuum pump

Claims

A vacuum chamber;
Traveling means for traveling the fiber substrate in the vacuum chamber;
A rotation holder for supporting the fiber substrate and rotating the fiber substrate at a constant speed;
And an evaporation source disposed under the vacuum chamber to evaporate the evaporation material.

The method according to claim 1,
Wherein the vacuum chamber includes a shutter for blocking deposition material evaporated in an evaporation source.

The method according to claim 1,
Wherein the rotating holder includes at least two and is spaced apart from each other.

The method according to claim 1,
Wherein the rotating holder includes a driving motor for driving rotation.

The method according to claim 1,
The evaporation source
A receiving part for receiving the deposition material;
A heating unit for heating the deposition material in the accommodation unit to discharge the vaporized deposition material from the accommodation unit toward the fiber substrate;
And a power supply unit for applying power to the heating unit.

The method according to claim 1,
And a vacuum pump for evacuating the inside of the vacuum chamber is provided outside the vacuum chamber.

The method according to claim 6,
Wherein the vacuum pump is at least one of a roughing pump, a turbo pump, an ion pump, a cry pump, and a diffusion pump.

A method of depositing an electronic fiber using the apparatus for depositing an electronic fiber according to any one of claims 1 to 7.