TWI673383B - Evaporation apparatus and evaporation process - Google Patents

Abstract

An evaporation equipment and an evaporation process. The vapor deposition equipment includes a roll-to-roll substrate transfer device, a vapor deposition device, and a mask device. The roll-to-roll substrate transfer device is used to transfer substrates. The vapor deposition device is disposed opposite to the roll-to-roll substrate transfer device. The masking device is disposed between the roll-to-roll substrate transfer device and the evaporation device, and is located above the evaporation device, wherein the masking device has a plurality of adjustable openings, and the The adjustment opening is adjusted to control a projection area of the modulation opening projected onto the substrate in a direction from the evaporation device to the substrate. The evaporation gas generated by the evaporation device passes through the adjustable opening and reaches the substrate.

Description

Evaporation equipment and process

This disclosure relates to an evaporation equipment and an evaporation process.

Deposition methods are widely used in the formation of specific electronic components. For example, chemical vapor deposition or physical vapor deposition is a traditional deposition method for forming different components, and the evaporation process is a widely used physical vapor deposition technique.

When forming a thin film, the thickness and deposition rate of the film need to be precise. For the evaporation process, when the substrate is transferred by a roll-to-roll substrate transfer device, since the roll-to-roll substrate transfer is continuous, it is not possible to control the thickness of the film layer formed on the substrate and the doping time by the evaporation time. Means of miscellaneous concentration.

The vapor deposition equipment disclosed in this disclosure includes a roll-to-roll substrate transfer device, a vapor deposition device, and a mask device. The roll-to-roll substrate transfer device is used to transfer substrates. The vapor deposition device is disposed opposite to the roll-to-roll substrate transfer device. The masking device is disposed between the roll-to-roll substrate transfer device and the evaporation device, and is located above the evaporation device, wherein the masking device has a plurality of adjustable openings, and the The adjustment opening is adjusted to control a projection area of the modulation opening projected onto the substrate in a direction from the evaporation device to the substrate. The evaporation gas generated by the evaporation device passes through the adjustable opening and reaches the substrate.

The disclosed vapor deposition process includes the following steps: providing the above-mentioned vapor deposition equipment; transferring the substrate by the roll-to-roll substrate transfer device; performing vapor deposition treatment on the substrate by the vapor deposition device; In addition, the adjustable opening is adjusted to control the plating rate in the evaporation process.

Based on the above, the present disclosure provides a masking device on the evaporation device and the masking device has a plurality of adjustable openings. When the plating rate of the evaporation process is to be adjusted, by adjusting the adjustable opening, the projection area of the adjustable opening to be projected onto the substrate can be controlled to adjust the plating rate of the evaporation process in real time without stopping the evaporation process. That is, the evaporation process disclosed in this disclosure can be a continuous process, so the process time and the complexity of the process can be effectively reduced.

In order to make the above-mentioned features of this disclosure more comprehensible, embodiments are described below in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of a vapor deposition apparatus according to an embodiment of the disclosure. Referring to FIG. 1, the vapor deposition equipment 10 includes a roll-to-roll substrate transfer device 100, a vapor deposition device 102, and a mask device 104. In addition, the vapor deposition apparatus 10 may further include a plating rate monitoring device 106. This will be explained in detail below.

The roll-to-roll substrate transfer apparatus 100 is used to transfer a substrate 108. The roll-to-roll substrate transfer apparatus 100 may be any form of roll-to-roll transfer apparatus, and is not limited to the form shown in FIG. 1. The substrate 108 may be any flexible substrate on which a film layer is to be formed. Based on the characteristics of the roll-to-roll transfer device, the evaporation process performed by the evaporation device 10 of the embodiment of the disclosure is a continuous process, so the time of evaporation cannot be used to control the thickness of the film layer formed on the substrate 108 and Means of doping concentration.

In this embodiment, the substrate 108 is vapor-deposited using a single vapor deposition material. Therefore, the vapor deposition equipment 10 has only one vapor deposition device (ie, the vapor deposition device 102), and the vapor deposition device 102 and the roll-to-roll substrate are transferred. The apparatus 100 is oppositely disposed and directly below the roll-to-roll substrate transfer apparatus 100, but the disclosure is not limited thereto. In this embodiment, the evaporation device 102 is a plating rate adjustment evaporation device (eg, a crucible) without a valve or without a variable nozzle. In this way, a vapor deposition material, such as LiN ₂ H ₃ , LiN ₃ or Li ₃ N, which can be easily affected by pressure in the deposition rate during the vapor deposition process can be used. When LiN ₂ H ₃ , LiN ₃ or Li ₃ N is used as the evaporation material, such materials will release hydrogen and / or nitrogen during the evaporation process and react with the water vapor in the evaporation chamber. The use of a plating rate adjusting evaporation device without a valve or a variable nozzle can avoid the pressure change caused by the above reaction in the evaporation device, thereby preventing the plating rate of the evaporation process from being affected. In addition, in the present disclosure, the form of the evaporation device 102 is not limited in any way. Therefore, the detailed structure of the evaporation device 102 is not shown in FIG. But this disclosure is not limited to this.

The masking device 104 is disposed between the roll-to-roll substrate transfer device 100 and the vapor deposition device 102, and is located above the vapor deposition device 102. In one embodiment, the masking device 104 is disposed adjacent to the evaporation device 102 and is not in direct contact with the evaporation device 102 to avoid forming a closed space in the evaporation device 102 and generating pressure changes during the evaporation process. In the disclosed embodiment, the masking device 104 is used to change the plating rate of the evaporation process to control the thickness and doping concentration of the film layer formed on the substrate 108 during the continuous process, which will be further described below.

The masking device 104 has a plurality of adjustable openings 105. During the evaporation process, the evaporation gas generated by the evaporation device 102 passes through the adjustable opening 105 and reaches the substrate 108. In the embodiment of the disclosure, the adjustable opening 105 is controlled to project onto the substrate 108 in a direction from the evaporation device 102 to the substrate 108 (that is, a direction along a connection line between the evaporation device 102 and the substrate 108). The projected area can achieve the purpose of controlling the plating rate of the evaporation process. For example, in the evaporation process, when the plating rate of the evaporation process is to be increased, the adjustable opening 105 can be adjusted to increase the above-mentioned projection area. Conversely, when it is desired to reduce the plating rate in the evaporation process, the adjustable opening 105 can be adjusted to reduce the above-mentioned projection area.

In this embodiment, the rotatable blade in the shielding device 104 defines an adjustable opening 105, and the adjustable opening 105 is adjusted by the rotation angle of the blade. In addition, in this embodiment, the masking device 104 may be composed of masking units 104b and 104a sequentially disposed in the conveying direction D of the substrate 108, and the masking units 104a and 104b are located at the same horizontal height. The mask units 104a and 104b may have the same structure.

FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram of the masking device 104a. As shown in FIG. 2, the shielding device 104 a has blades 107 arranged in parallel, and an adjustable opening 105 is defined between adjacent blades 107. Each blade 107 is composed of a strip-shaped plate, and the material of the plate may be any suitable material, preferably a material that does not react with the vapor deposition gas. The longitudinal direction (that is, the extension direction) of the blade 107 and the conveying direction D of the substrate 108 are staggered, and in this embodiment, they are orthogonal, for example. In addition, each blade 107 is rotatable about an axis 109 parallel to its length direction. The width of the adjustable opening 105 can be adjusted by the rotation of the blade 107 to control the projection area of the adjustable opening 105 to the substrate 108 in the direction of the evaporation device 102 to the substrate 108, that is, to adjust the evaporation gas to reach the substrate The amount of 108 is used to control the plating rate of the evaporation process.

In addition, the rotation angle of each blade 107 of the mask units 104a and 104b can be controlled separately, so that the evaporation process has a required plating rate, and the evaporation gas generated by the evaporation device 102 can reach the substrate uniformly. 108. In order to effectively control the plating rate, the angle θ between each blade 107 and the plane P of the vertical shielding device 102 may be between 15 ° and 70 °.

In some embodiments, the included angle θ can be adjusted according to the following Equation 1 to adjust the plating rate to the maximum:
θ = tan ^-1 (x _c / y _d ) Equation 1
Where x _c is the horizontal distance between the evaporation device 102 and the center point of the substrate 108, and y _d is the vertical distance between the evaporation device 102 and the substrate 108.

In some embodiments, the width of each blade 107 is, for example, larger than the width of a film layer to be formed on the substrate 108. In some embodiments, the width and thickness of each blade 107 is, for example, greater than the allowable mechanism stiffness. In some embodiments, the configuration range of the blades 107 is, for example, the sum of the effective range of the formed film layer passing through the mask units 104 a and 104 b and the width of each blade 107.

In this embodiment, the masking device 104 is composed of masking units 104a and 104b, but the disclosure is not limited thereto. In other embodiments, the masking device 104 may be composed of only one masking unit, and the rotation angle of each blade 107 may be adjusted according to actual needs to control the plating rate of the evaporation process.

In this embodiment, the plating rate monitoring device 106 is disposed adjacent to the mask unit 104b, but the present invention is not limited thereto. The plating rate monitoring device 106 may also be disposed adjacent to the mask unit 104a, or other suitable locations, as long as it does not affect the evaporation gas reaching the substrate 108. The plating rate monitoring device 106 is used to monitor the plating rate of the evaporation process in real time during the evaporation process. Therefore, the plating rate monitoring device 106 can be disposed close to the evaporation device 102 to improve the monitoring sensitivity. In one embodiment, the plating rate monitoring device 106 and the mask device 104 can be connected to a control unit (not shown). When the plating rate monitoring device 106 detects a change in the plating rate during the evaporation process, a signal can be transmitted to the control unit, and the adjustable opening 105 of the masking device 104 can be adjusted by the control unit. In order to adjust the deposition rate of the evaporation process in real time. In one embodiment, the plating rate monitoring device 106 may be a quartz crystal microbalance (QCM).

In this embodiment, the blade 107 in the shielding device 104 is composed of a strip-shaped plate, but the present invention is not limited thereto. The blades in the masking device 104 may have different structures according to actual needs. For example, as shown in FIG. 3A, the blade 107a may have curved sides. Alternatively, as shown in FIG. 3B, the blade 107b may have an opening therein. Alternatively, in other embodiments, the blade may have curved sides and openings at the same time.

In this embodiment, the mask units 104a and 104b are located at the same horizontal height, but the present invention is not limited thereto. The mask units 104a and 104b may also be located at different levels. For example, the mask unit 104b disposed adjacent to the plating rate monitoring device 106 may be positioned at a lower level (ie, closer to the evaporation device 102), as shown in FIG. In this way, the plating rate monitoring device 106 can be made closer to the evaporation device 102 to improve the monitoring sensitivity.

In addition, in this embodiment, the masking device 104 has a blade 107, and the projection area of the adjustable opening 105 projected onto the substrate 108 is controlled by rotating the blade 107, but the present invention is not limited thereto. In another embodiment, as shown in FIGS. 4A and 4B, the masking device 104 has an upper shield 400 a and a lower shield 400 b that are disposed in parallel. The upper shutter 400a has a plurality of openings 402a, the lower shutter 400b has a plurality of openings 402b, and the openings 402a and 402b define an adjustable opening 105. In detail, the upper shutter plate 400a and the lower shutter plate 400b can each be moved in the conveying direction D. When the opening hole 402a and the opening hole 402b partially or completely overlap (as shown in FIG. 4B), the overlapping portion is adjustable Opening hole 105. That is, in this embodiment, the projection area of the adjustable opening 105 onto the substrate 108 is controlled by adjusting the overlapping area of the opening 402a and the opening 402b.

Similarly, the mask device 104 may be composed of two mask units each having an upper mask 400a and a lower mask 400b, or may be constituted by only one mask unit. In the case where the masking device 104 is composed of two masking units, as described above, the two masking units may be located at different horizontal heights, or may be located at the same horizontal height.

In addition, in each of the embodiments described above, the masking device 104 is provided for the conveying direction D of the parallel substrate 108, but the present invention is not limited thereto. The masking device 104 can also be rotated about an axis interlaced with the conveying direction D. For example, as shown in Figure 6. In the case where the masking device 104 is composed of masking units 104a and 104b, the masking unit 104a can be rotated about the axis 600a, and the masking unit 104b can be rotated about the axis 600b to further control the adjustable opening 105 to project to The projection area of the substrate 108.

The evaporation process of the present disclosure will be described below by taking the evaporation equipment 10 as an example. FIG. 7 is a schematic flowchart of a vapor deposition process according to an embodiment of the disclosure. Referring to FIG. 7, first, in step 700, a substrate 108 is transferred by a roll-to-roll substrate transfer device 102. Next, in step 702, when the substrate 108 is transferred above the evaporation device 102, the substrate 108 is subjected to a vapor deposition process by the evaporation device 102. At this time, the vapor deposition gas generated by the vapor deposition device 102 passes through the mask device 104 and reaches the substrate 108 to form a film layer on the substrate 108. At the same time, the plating rate is monitored by the plating rate monitoring device 106. When the plating rate fails to meet the requirements or it is desired to adjust the plating rate, in step 704, the adjustable opening 105 is adjusted with reference to the monitoring result of the plating rate monitoring device 106 to adjust the plating rate immediately without stopping the evaporation process That is, the disclosed evaporation process can be a continuous process, so the process time and the process complexity can be effectively reduced.

In the above embodiments, there is only one vapor deposition device in the vapor deposition equipment, but the present invention is not limited thereto. In other embodiments, the evaporation device may have more evaporation devices to perform a co-evaporation process on the substrate.

FIG. 8 is a schematic diagram of a vapor deposition apparatus according to another embodiment of the disclosure. Referring to FIG. 8, in this embodiment, the vapor deposition device 80 includes a vapor deposition device 800 in addition to all the devices in the vapor deposition device 10. In one implementation, the evaporation source of the evaporation device 800 is an organic material. The evaporation device 800 is separated from the evaporation device 102 and is used to generate additional evaporation gas for co-evaporation. In order to prevent the plating rate monitoring device 106 from being affected by the evaporation gas generated from the evaporation device 800, a baffle 802 is disposed between the evaporation device 800 and the plating rate monitoring device 106 to block the evaporation gas generated by the evaporation device 800 . In this embodiment, the baffle 802 is disposed above the masking device 104 to affect the evaporation process as little as possible. This disclosure does not specifically limit the position, form, material, etc. of the baffle 802, as long as the baffle 802 can prevent the plating rate monitoring device 106 from being affected by the vaporization gas generated from the vaporization device 800.

In addition, in this embodiment, the masking device 104 is disposed at a position higher than the nozzle of the vapor deposition device 800, but the disclosure is not limited thereto. In other embodiments, the masking device 104 may be provided at the same height as the nozzle of the evaporation device 800 in the horizontal direction, as long as it does not affect the evaporation effect of the evaporation device 800.

Although the present disclosure has been disclosed as above by way of example, it is not intended to limit the present disclosure. Any person with ordinary knowledge in the technical field should make some changes and modifications without departing from the spirit and scope of the present disclosure. The scope of protection of this disclosure shall be determined by the scope of the attached patent application.

10.80‧‧‧Evaporation equipment

100‧‧‧ roll-to-roll substrate transfer device

102, 800‧‧‧ evaporation equipment

104‧‧‧Mask device

104a, 104b‧‧‧Mask unit

105‧‧‧ adjustable opening

106‧‧‧Plating rate monitoring device

107, 107a, 107b ‧‧‧ Blades

108‧‧‧ substrate

109, 600a, 600b‧‧‧ axis

400a‧‧‧ Upper cover

400b‧‧‧ lower shutter

402a, 402b‧‧‧Opening

700, 702, 704‧‧‧ steps

802‧‧‧ bezel

D‧‧‧Transfer direction

P‧‧‧plane

θ‧‧‧ angle

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of a vapor deposition apparatus according to an embodiment of the disclosure.
FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram of a mask device according to an embodiment of the disclosure.
FIG. 3A and FIG. 3B are schematic diagrams of blades of a mask device according to different embodiments of the disclosure.
4A and 4B are schematic diagrams of a mask device according to another embodiment of the disclosure.
FIG. 5 is a schematic diagram of a vapor deposition apparatus according to another embodiment of the disclosure.
FIG. 6 is a schematic diagram of a vapor deposition apparatus according to another embodiment of the disclosure.
FIG. 7 is a schematic flowchart of a vapor deposition process according to an embodiment of the disclosure.
FIG. 8 is a schematic diagram of a vapor deposition apparatus according to another embodiment of the disclosure.

Claims (18)

An evaporation equipment includes:
Roll-to-roll substrate transfer device for transferring substrates;
A vapor deposition device is disposed opposite the roll-to-roll substrate transfer device; and a mask device is disposed between the roll-to-roll substrate transfer device and the vapor deposition device, and is located above the vapor deposition device, wherein The masking device has a plurality of adjustable openings, and the adjustable openings are adjusted to control a projection area of the masking device in a direction from the evaporation device to the substrate,
The evaporation gas generated by the evaporation device passes through the adjustable opening and reaches the substrate. The vapor deposition device according to item 1 of the patent application scope, wherein the masking device has a plurality of blades arranged in parallel, and the plurality of adjustable openings are defined between the plurality of blades, and The length direction of the blades is staggered with the conveying direction of the substrate, and each of the blades is rotatable about an axis parallel to the length direction. The vapor deposition equipment according to item 2 of the scope of patent application, wherein the masking device includes a first masking unit and a second masking unit which are sequentially arranged in the conveying direction, and the first mask Each of the unit and the second mask unit has a plurality of the blades. The vapor deposition equipment according to item 3 of the scope of patent application, wherein the first mask unit and the second mask unit are located at different levels. The vapor deposition equipment according to item 3 of the scope of patent application, wherein the first mask unit and the second mask unit are each rotatable about an axis parallel to the longitudinal direction. According to the vapor deposition equipment described in the second item of the patent application scope, an included angle between each of the blades and a plane perpendicular to the masking device is between 15 ° and 70 °. The vapor deposition equipment according to item 6 of the scope of patent application, wherein the included angle conforms to Equation 1:
θ = tan ^-1 (x _c / y _d ) Equation 1
Where x _c is the horizontal distance between the evaporation device and the center point of the substrate, and y _d is the vertical distance between the evaporation device and the substrate. The vapor deposition equipment according to item 2 of the scope of patent application, wherein a width of each of the blades is larger than a width of a film layer to be formed on the substrate. The vapor deposition device according to item 1 of the scope of patent application, wherein the mask device has an upper shield and a lower shield arranged in parallel, the upper shield has a plurality of first openings, and the lower shield There are a plurality of second openings, and each of the upper shutter and the lower shutter is movable in the conveying direction, wherein an overlapping portion of the first opening and the second opening defines a place. Said multiple adjustable openings. The vapor deposition equipment according to item 9 of the scope of patent application, wherein the masking device includes a first masking unit and a second masking unit which are sequentially arranged in the conveying direction, and the first mask The unit and the second mask unit each have the upper shield and the lower shield. The vapor deposition equipment according to item 10 of the scope of patent application, wherein the first mask unit and the second mask unit are located at different levels. The vapor deposition apparatus according to item 10 of the scope of patent application, wherein the first mask unit and the second mask unit are each rotatable about an axis interlaced with the conveying direction. The vapor deposition equipment according to item 1 of the scope of patent application, further includes a plating rate monitoring device disposed adjacent to the mask device. The vapor deposition equipment according to item 1 of the patent application scope further includes a co-evaporation device and a plating rate monitoring device, wherein the co-evaporation device is disposed opposite to the roll-to-roll substrate transfer device, and the plating rate monitoring The device is disposed adjacent to the mask device and away from the co-evaporation device. The vapor deposition equipment according to item 14 of the scope of patent application, further comprising a baffle, which is disposed above the mask device and located between the plating rate monitoring device and the co-evaporation device. The vapor deposition device according to item 14 of the scope of application for a patent, wherein the masking device is disposed at the same height as the nozzle of the co-evaporation device in the horizontal direction. An evaporation process includes:
Provide the vapor deposition equipment as described in any one of the first to the sixteenth patent application scope;
Transferring the substrate by the roll-to-roll substrate transfer device;
The substrate is subjected to a vapor deposition process by the vapor deposition device; and in the vapor deposition process, the adjustable opening is adjusted to control a plating rate in the vapor deposition process. The vapor deposition process according to item 17 of the scope of patent application, wherein the vapor deposition material in the vapor deposition device includes LiN ₂ H ₃ , LiN ₃ or Li ₃ N.