TWI575091B - A vapor deposition device with collimator tube - Google Patents

Description

Vapor deposition device with collimating tube

The present invention relates to an evaporation apparatus for depositing an organic light emitting diode (OLED) flat panel display, and more particularly to an evaporation apparatus having a collimator.

In recent years, due to the evolution of technology, various flat-panel displays have been developed. Among them, flat-panel displays composed of OLEDs have the advantages of low power consumption, high-speed responsiveness, and self-illumination, and are highly regarded. The OLED flat panel display uses an evaporation device to deposit three kinds of organic light-emitting materials such as red light, green light and blue light on a substrate on which a thin film transistor (TFT) is formed, so that the red light and the green light with a specific pattern are The blue organic material is provided with three kinds of pixels such as red, green and blue on the TFT. The aforementioned red, green and blue organic materials having a specific pattern can be technically achieved by using a mask having a predetermined pattern (i.e., a plurality of openings of the mask) in combination with an evaporation method.

However, since the organic gas molecules are directly and obliquely incident on the openings of the mask during the evaporation process. For obliquely incident organic gas molecules, the thickness of the mask itself tends to cause shadowing of the organic gas molecules and result in uneven film thickness (i.e., the pixels are thick in the middle but the periphery is thin). Therefore, it is composed of an organic light-emitting material having an uneven thickness The OLED flat panel display completed by pixels can easily affect the resolution of the display screen and cause deterioration of the pattern display quality when actually operating and mixing.

Referring to Fig. 1, in order to overcome the shadowing effect of the mask, the Republic of China TW201437396A early publication invention patent case (hereinafter referred to as the previous case) discloses an evaporation device 9 having a limiting plate for supplying a raw material (not shown) The gas molecules 95 are vaporized to form the gas molecules 95 on a substrate 96. As shown in FIG. 1, the vapor deposition device 9 having a limiting plate comprises: a vacuum chamber (not shown), an evaporation source 91, and a set of upper limiting plates 92 arranged parallel to each other along a Y direction and spaced apart. A set of lower restricting plates 93 which are parallel to each other and spaced apart in the X direction perpendicular to the Y direction, and a mask 94 having a plurality of openings 941.

The evaporation source 91, the upper limiting plates 92, the lower limiting plates 93, and the mask 94 are all located within the vacuum chamber. The lower limiting plate 93 and the upper limiting plate 92 are located above the evaporation source 91 and are located below the mask 94, which is a gas that is vaporized from the evaporation source 91 and which is not directional. The molecules 95 can pass through the upper limiting plates 92 such that the gas molecules 95 passing through the lower limiting plates 93 and having poor directivity are again restricted by the upper limiting plates 92 to pass the gas molecules passing through the upper limiting plates 92. The 95 can travel to the openings 941 of the mask 94 and form a film on the substrate 96. Therefore, the lower limiting plates 93 and the upper limiting plates 92 can confine the gas molecules 95 such that the gas molecules 95 travel in two stages upward; that is, first defined in the lower limit plates 93. a one-dimensional space that travels upwards and is further defined in the upper limit plate 92 Travel in the dimension space upwards.

Although the former case improves the directivity of the gas molecules 95, The spatial arrangement of the lower limiting plates 93 and the upper limiting plates 92 is such that the vacuum chamber of the vapor deposition device 9 needs to extend upward as a whole. Therefore, the distance from the evaporation source 91 to the mask 94 is increased, resulting in a large vacuum chamber space.

According to the above description, the improved method for depositing OLED plane display The structure of the vapor deposition device of the display allows the gas molecules to be reliably restricted to travel upward, and the effective use of the space of the vacuum chamber is a problem to be solved by those skilled in the art.

Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide an evaporation apparatus having a collimating tube.

Therefore, the vapor deposition device of the present invention has a collimating tube for vaporizing a raw material into a plurality of gas molecules and depositing the gas molecules on a material to be plated. The vapor deposition apparatus having a collimating tube includes: a vacuum chamber unit, a gasification unit, and at least one collimating tube.

The vacuum chamber unit includes a bottom and a top opposite the bottom and defines a closed reaction chamber. The object to be plated is placed on the top to be positioned in the closed reaction chamber. The gasification unit is disposed at the bottom of the vacuum chamber unit and can vaporize the raw material into the gas molecules. The gasification unit includes a housing in the closed reaction chamber, the housing defines an accommodating space for accommodating the raw material, and a top portion of the housing is formed with at least one and the accommodating space Connected shots. The collimating tube is detachably Between the housing and the object to be plated, the collimating tube has an inlet end facing the ejection opening of the housing, and an outlet end facing the object to be plated, and is from the inlet end toward the plate to be plated The object extends straight.

The effect of the invention is that the collimating tube is used to shoot from the same a port extending toward the object to be plated, and an inlet end and an outlet end of the collimating tube respectively facing the ejection opening of the housing and the object to be plated, so that the gas molecules are in the collimating tube The defined two-dimensional space effectively travels upwards and thereby reduces the space occupied by the collimating tube within the closed reaction chamber.

1‧‧‧vacuum chamber unit

11‧‧‧ bottom

12‧‧‧ top

13‧‧‧Closed reaction chamber

2‧‧‧ gasification unit

21‧‧‧ housing

211‧‧‧ top

22‧‧‧ accommodating space

23‧‧‧ shots

24‧‧‧Stretching

3‧‧‧ Collimation tube

31‧‧‧ entrance end

32‧‧‧export end

4‧‧‧ mask

40‧‧‧ openings

5‧‧‧Box board

51‧‧‧ Inner torus

81‧‧‧Original materials

82‧‧‧ gas molecules

83‧‧‧The object to be plated

Z‧‧‧ axis direction

Other features and effects of the present invention will be apparent from the following description of the drawings, wherein: FIG. 1 is a perspective view showing the steaming of the limiting plate disclosed in the Korean Patent Publication No. TW201437396A. FIG. 2 is a perspective view showing an embodiment of a vapor deposition apparatus having a collimating tube according to the present invention; and FIG. 3 is a cross-sectional view taken along line III-III of FIG. 2, illustrating the embodiment. A vacuum chamber unit, a gasification unit, and a plurality of collimating tubes.

Referring to FIG. 2 and FIG. 3, an embodiment of the vapor deposition apparatus having a collimating tube is used to vaporize a raw material 81 into a plurality of gas molecules 82 and deposit the gas molecules 82 on a material to be plated. 83. The embodiment comprises: a vacuum chamber unit 1, a gasification unit 2, and a plurality of collimating tubes 3, And a mask 4.

The vacuum chamber unit 1 includes a bottom portion 11 and a top portion 12 opposite the bottom portion 11, and defines a closed reaction chamber 13. The object to be plated 83 is disposed at the top portion 12 to be positioned in the sealed reaction chamber 13. As will be appreciated by those skilled in the art, the vacuum chamber unit 1 essentially has a stainless steel chamber including the bottom portion 11 and the top portion 12 defining the closed reaction chamber 13, and a means for the sealing reaction. The chamber 13 presents a pumping pump in a vacuum state (not shown), but the stainless steel chamber and the pumping pump are not technical features of the present invention, and will not be further described herein.

The gasification unit 2 is disposed at the bottom 11 of the vacuum chamber unit 1 and is capable of vaporizing the raw material 81 into the gas molecules 82. The gasification unit 2 includes a housing 21 in the closed reaction chamber 13. The housing 21 defines an accommodating space 22 for accommodating the raw material 81, and a top portion 211 of the housing 21. At least one injection port 23 communicating with the accommodating space 22 is formed. Those skilled in the art will appreciate that the gasification unit 2 can vaporize the raw material 81 into the gas molecules 82, except that the housing 21 (e.g., helium) is included, and substantially includes a shell surrounding the shell. a heating coil (not shown) of the body 21 for heating and gasifying the raw material 81 in the accommodating space 22, or an electron gun with a focusing lens group and an electron beam generating member . The components such as the heating coil or the electron gun are not the technical features of the present invention, and will not be further described herein.

The collimating tubes 3 are detachably disposed between the housing 21 and the object to be plated 83. The collimating tubes 3 have an inlet end 31 facing the injection opening 23 of the housing 21, and an outlet end 32 facing the object to be plated 83, and The inlet ends 31 extend straightly toward the object to be plated 83.

The mask 4 is disposed between a surface of the object to be plated 83 and an exit end 32 of each of the collimating tubes 3. The mask 4 has a plurality of openings 40 for the gas molecules 82, and the outlet ends 32 of the respective collimating tubes 3 are openings 40 facing the mask 4.

In detail, in the present embodiment, the number of the ejection openings 23 formed by the top portion 211 of the housing 21 is plural, and the housing 21 is also collimated from the respective ejection openings 23 of the top portion 211 thereof. A protruding portion 24 is protruded from the tube 3 so that each of the protruding portions 24 defines the respective ejection openings 23. More specifically, each of the protrusions 24 is such that each of the ejection openings 23 presents an upright passage, so that the gas molecules 82 can advance before the detachment of the accommodating space 22 The inside effectively moves upwards.

In this embodiment of the invention, the collimating tubes 3 are formed by a frame plate 5 disposed substantially parallel to the mask 4 and having a plurality of inner annular faces 51 therein; in other words, the frame plate 5 Each of the inner annular faces 51 defines a passage of each of the collimating tubes 3. Preferably, the cross-sectional shape of the passage of each of the collimating tubes 3 parallel to a top surface of the frame plate 5 is a circle, a hexagon, a square, or a triangle. In this embodiment of the present invention, the cross-sectional shape of the passage of each of the collimating tubes 3 parallel to the top surface of the frame plate 5 is a circle as shown in FIG. 2 and has a diameter, and each diameter is 0.5. To 10 centimeters for illustration, but not limited to this. More preferably, a shortest distance from the inlet end 31 of each collimating tube 3 to each of the ejection openings 23 of the housing 21 is 1 to 150 cm, and the outlet end 32 of each collimating tube 3 is the shortest to the mask 4. The distance is from 1 to 150 cm.

It should be noted that when the gas molecules 82 travel from the accommodating space 22 of the housing 21 to the ejection opening 23 of each protruding portion 24, they are first along an axis of each protruding portion 24. The direction Z is emitted from each of the injection ports 23; after the gas molecules 82 are emitted, a part of the gas molecules 82 emitted through the respective injection ports 23 of the casing 21 are able to pass through the inlet end 31 of the collimating tubes 3, and The remaining gas molecules 82 emitted from the respective injection ports 23 of the casing 21 are corrected by the collimator tubes 3. According to the description of each of the above paragraphs, the passage of each of the collimating tubes 3 of the embodiment of the present invention is defined by the respective inner annular faces 51 provided in the frame plate 5. Therefore, the portion of the gas 82 passing through the inlet end 31 of the collimating tube 3 can effectively travel upward in the two-dimensional space defined by the inner annular faces 51, and from the outlet end of the collimating tubes 3 32 exits to continue along the axis direction Z toward the respective openings 40 of the mask 4 and thereby deposit on the surface of the object to be plated 83.

Moreover, in the embodiment of the present invention, the housing 21 and the frame plate 5 are horizontally movable relative to the mask 4 to allow the housing 21 and the frame plate 5 to move horizontally. , a large-area evaporation process. However, the housing 21 can also be horizontally moved relative to the frame plate 5. The frame plate 5 is fixed to the vacuum chamber unit 1 and is not limited to this embodiment.

It should be added here that the size of the opening 40 of the mask 4 is related to the diameter of the channel of the collimating tube 3, that is, the mask 4 having a larger average opening 40, which is a collimating tube with a larger diameter. 3, and vice versa. Thereby, the alignment ability of the collimating tubes 3 can be enhanced, and the shadowing effect caused by the mask 4 can be greatly reduced.

Integrating the above content, specifically, within the gasification unit 2 After the raw material 81 is vaporized into the gas molecules 82, the gas molecules 82 are first restricted by the injection ports 23 of the protrusions 24 to face the alignment tubes 3 along the axis direction Z. The inlet end 31 travels, and the gas molecules 82 (i.e., the aforementioned residual gas molecules 82) having a larger injection angle (i.e., the angle between the molecular traveling direction and the axial direction Z) are corrected by the inner annular surface 51 of the frame plate 5, so that The injection angle of the remaining gas molecules 82 is reduced, and the portion of the gas molecules 82 having a smaller injection angle (more collimated) can smoothly enter the inlet end 31 of each of the collimating tubes 3 to be in each inner annular surface 51. The defined two-dimensional space travels upwardly and exits from the outlet end 32 to continue along the axis direction Z toward the respective openings 40 of the mask 4 for deposition on the surface of the object to be plated 83. In other words, the collimating tubes 3 can correct the gas molecules 82 having a large ejection angle and easily causing a shadowing effect, so that the ejection angle of the gas molecules 82 passing through the collimating tubes 3 is reduced. Therefore, on the one hand, the shadowing effect caused by the mask 4 can be greatly reduced, and a coating film formed by the openings 40 of the mask 4 and deposited on the surface of the object to be plated 83 can be more precise. The inner ring surface 51 of the frame plate 5 directly defines the two-dimensional space of each of the collimating tubes 3, which reduces the occupation of the collimating tubes 3 in the closed reaction chamber 13. The space of the gas molecules 95 is limited by the one-dimensional space defined by the lower limit plates 93 and the upper limit plates 92, as in the previous case, so that the directivity of the gas molecules 95 is limited, so that the evaporation source The distance from the 91 to the mask 94 is increased, and a larger vacuum chamber is required to position the lower limit plate 93 and the upper limit plates 92.

In summary, the present invention has a vapor deposition device for collimating tubes, and the collimating tubes 3 are vertically aligned from the inlet ends 31 toward the object to be plated 83. Therefore, the gas molecules 82 having a larger injection angle can be adjusted by the collimating tubes 3 (i.e., the inner annular surface 51 of the frame plate 5) so that the ejection angle is reduced, and the gas molecules 82 having a smaller ejection angle can Effectively moving upward in the two-dimensional space defined in each of the collimating tubes 3 to the surface of the object to be plated 83, avoiding the shadowing effect caused by the mask 4, and reducing the collimating tube 3 in the sealing reaction The space occupied by the chamber 13 is indeed capable of achieving the object of the present invention.

However, the above is only the embodiment of the present invention, and the scope of the present invention is not limited thereto, that is, all the equivalent equivalent changes and modifications according to the scope of the patent application and the patent specification of the present invention are still It is within the scope of the patent of the present invention.

1‧‧‧vacuum chamber unit

11‧‧‧ bottom

12‧‧‧ top

13‧‧‧Closed reaction chamber

21‧‧‧ housing

24‧‧‧Stretching

3‧‧‧ Collimation tube

4‧‧‧ mask

5‧‧‧Box board

83‧‧‧The object to be plated

Claims (7)

An evaporation device having a collimating tube for vaporizing a raw material into a plurality of gas molecules and depositing the gas molecules on a material to be plated, the vapor deposition device having a collimating tube comprising: a vacuum chamber The body unit includes a bottom portion and a top portion opposite to the bottom portion, and defines a closed reaction chamber, the object to be plated is disposed at the top portion to be positioned in the closed reaction chamber; a gasification unit is disposed in the vacuum chamber The bottom of the unit is capable of vaporizing the raw material into the gas molecules, and the gasification unit comprises a casing in the closed reaction chamber, the casing defining an accommodation space for accommodating the raw material. And a top portion of the housing is formed with at least one ejection opening communicating with the accommodating space; at least one collimating tube is detachably disposed between the housing and the object to be plated, the collimating tube having a face An inlet end of the ejection opening of the housing, and an outlet end facing the object to be plated, and extending from the inlet end toward the object to be plated; and a mask disposed on a surface of the object to be plated Between the outlet end of the collimating tube. The vapor deposition device having a collimating tube according to claim 1, wherein the number of the ejection openings formed at the top of the housing is plural; the number of the collimating tubes is plural; the mask has a plurality of The openings through which the gas molecules pass, and the outlet ends of the respective collimating tubes are openings facing the mask. An evaporation device having a collimating tube according to claim 2, wherein the housing further protrudes from each of the ejection openings of the top toward each of the collimating tubes. Extending the portions so that the projections define the respective ejection openings. The vapor deposition device having a collimating tube according to claim 2 or 3, wherein a shortest distance from an inlet end of each collimating tube to each of the ejection openings of the housing is 1 to 150 cm, and each collimating tube The shortest distance from the exit end to the mask is 1 to 150 cm. The vapor deposition apparatus having a collimating tube according to claim 2 or 3, wherein the collimating tubes are constituted by a frame plate substantially parallel to the mask and having a plurality of inner annular surfaces therein. The vapor deposition device with a collimating tube according to claim 5, wherein each inner annular surface of the frame plate defines a channel corresponding to each collimating tube, and each channel is parallel to a top surface of the frame plate. A cross-sectional shape is a circle, a hexagon, a square, or a triangle. An evaporation apparatus having a collimating tube according to claim 6, wherein the cross-sectional shape is a circle and has a diameter, and each diameter is 0.5 to 10 cm.