Display manufacturing apparatus and display manufacturing method

• US 20040051817A1
• Filed: 05/13/2003
• Published: 03/18/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 05/17/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Kateeva, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Seiko Epson Corporation (Seiko Group)
• Inventors: Takahashi, Tomoaki, Sakai, Hirofumi
• Granted Patent: US 7,223,309 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 349/1
• CPC Class Codes: B41J 2/0456 detecting drop size, volume or weight
• CPC Class Codes: B41J 2/04581 controlling heads based on piezoelectric elements
• CPC Class Codes: B41J 2/04588 using a specific waveform
• CPC Class Codes: B41J 2/04593 Dot-size modulation by changing the size of the drop
• CPC Class Codes: B41J 2202/09 Ink jet technology used for manufacturing optical filters
• CPC Class Codes: B41J 29/393 Devices for controlling or analysing the entire machine ; Controlling or analysing mechanical parameters involving printing of test patterns

Abstract

A carriage 5 is provided with an injection head 7 to discharge an amount of liquid drops according to the supplied driving pulses and a liquid material sensor 17 to detect the ink amount hit at a filter substrate at each pixel region. A main controller 31 determines a waveform of the driving pulses capable of discharging the short amount of liquid drops according to a level of a detection signal from the liquid material sensor 17 and outputs the determined information on the waveform of the driving pulses to driving signal generator 32. The driving signal generator 32 generates driving pulses according to the received information on the waveform and outputs it to the injection head 7. The injection head 7 adjusts an ink amount at the corresponding pixel region to the target amount of liquid material by injecting the short amount of liquid drops to the corresponding pixel region.

Claims

1. A display manufacturing apparatus comprising:

pressure chambers communicating with nozzle openings and capable of reserving liquid material;

electromechanical conversion elements capable of changing the volume of the pressure chambers;

an injection head capable of discharging the liquid material in the pressure chambers out of the nozzle openings in its liquid drop state accompanied by the supply of driving pulses to electromechanical conversion elements; and

driving pulse generating means capable of generating driving pulses; and

constructed to hit liquid material discharged out of nozzle openings to liquid material regions on the surface of a display substrate, the improvement comprising;

liquid material amount detecting means capable of detecting the hitting amount of liquid material at each liquid material region;

short amount acquiring means for acquiring the short amount of liquid material at the corresponding liquid material region from a difference between the hitting amount of liquid material detected by the liquid material detecting means and the target amount of liquid material; and

pulse shape setting means for setting a shape of the driving pulses to be generated by the driving pulse generating means;

wherein the pulse shape setting means sets a waveform of the driving pulses according to the short amount of liquid material acquired by the short amount acquiring means; and

wherein the short amount of liquid material is supplemented to the corresponding liquid material region by generating the driving pulses from the driving pulse generating means and supplying them to the electromechanical conversion elements.

2. The display manufacturing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the liquid amount detecting means is constructed with a light-emitting element to be a light source and a light-receiving element capable of outputting electrical signals of voltage according to the intensity of the received light;

wherein the liquid material region is irradiated with the light from the lightemitting element, and the light from the liquid material region is received at the light-receiving element so as to detect the hitting amount of liquid material at the liquid material region according to the intensity of the received light.

3. The display manufacturing apparatus according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the driving pulses are first driving pulses including:

an expansion component to expand a normal volume of the pressure chambers at a level of speed that will not allow for the discharge of liquid material;

an expansion hold component to hold the expanded pressure chambers; and

a discharge component to discharge the liquid material by abruptly contracting the pressure chambers held at their expanded state; and

wherein the pulse shape setting means sets a driving voltage from its maximum voltage to its minimum voltage in the first driving pulses.

4. The display manufacturing apparatus according to any one of claims 1 to 3, wherein the driving pulses are first driving pulses including:

an expansion component to expand a normal volume of the pressure chambers at a level of speed that will not allow for the discharge of liquid material;

an expansion hold component to hold the expanded pressure chambers; and

a discharge component to discharge the liquid material by abruptly contracting the pressure chambers held at its expanded state; and

wherein the pulse shape setting means sets an intermediate potential corresponding to the normal volume of the pressure chambers.

5. The display manufacturing apparatus according to any one of claims 1 to 3, wherein the driving pulses are first driving pulses including:

an expansion component to expand a normal volume of the pressure chambers at a level of speed that will not allow for the discharge of liquid material;

an expansion hold component to hold the expanded pressure chambers; and

a discharge component to discharge the liquid material by abruptly contracting the pressure chambers held at their expanded state; and

wherein the pulse shape setting means sets the duration of the expansion component.

6. The display manufacturing apparatus according to any one of claims 1 to 3, wherein the driving pulses are first driving pulses including:

an expansion component to expand a normal volume of the pressure chambers at a level of speed that will not allow for the discharge of liquid material;

an expansion hold component to hold the expanded pressure chambers; and

a discharge component to discharge the liquid material by abruptly contracting the pressure chambers held at their expanded state; and

wherein the pulse shape setting means sets the duration of the expansion hold component.

7. The display manufacturing apparatus according to any one of claims 1 to 3, wherein the driving pulses are second driving pulses including:

a second expansion component to abruptly expand a normal volume of the pressure chambers so as to draw in meniscus greatly to the side of the pressure chambers; and

a second discharge component to discharge the central part of the meniscus drawn in by the second expansion component in a liquid drop state by contracting the pressure chambers; and

wherein the pulse shape setting means sets a driving voltage from its maximum voltage to its minimum voltage in the second driving pulses.

8. The display manufacturing apparatus according to any one of claims 1 to 3, wherein the driving pulses are second driving pulses including:

a second expansion component to abruptly expand a normal volume of the pressure chambers so as to draw in meniscus greatly to the side of the pressure chambers; and

a second discharge component to discharge the central part of the meniscus drawn in by the second expansion component in a liquid drop state by contracting the pressure chambers; and

wherein the pulse shape setting means sets an intermediate potential corresponding to the normal volume of the pressure chambers.

9. The display manufacturing apparatus according to any one of claims 1 to 3, wherein. the driving pulses are second driving pulses including:

a second expansion component to abruptly expand a normal volume of the pressure chambers so as to draw in meniscus greatly to the side of the pressure chambers; and

a second discharge component to discharge the central part of the meniscus drawn in by the second expansion component in a liquid drop state by contracting the pressure chambers; and

wherein the pulse shape setting means sets a termination potential of the second discharge component.

10. The display manufacturing apparatus according to any one of claims 1 to 9, wherein the driving pulse generating means is constructed to be capable of generating a plurality of driving pulses within a unit period, thereby making it possible to adjust the discharge amount of liquid material by varying the supply number of driving pulses to the pressure generating element at the unit period.

11. The display manufacturing apparatus according to any one of claims 1 to 10, wherein the liquid material is liquid state material including light emitting material.

12. The display manufacturing apparatus according to any one of claims 1 to 10, wherein the liquid material is liquid state material including hole injection/transport layer forming material.

13. The display manufacturing apparatus according to any one of claims 1 to 10, wherein the liquid material is liquid state material including conductive fine particles.

14. The display manufacturing apparatus according to any one of claims 1 to 10, wherein the liquid material is liquid state material including coloring components.

15. The display manufacturing apparatus according to claim 14, further comprising:

excess amount acquiring means for acquiring the excess amount of liquid material from a difference between the hitting amount of liquid material detected by the liquid material amount detecting means and the target amount of liquid material at the corresponding liquid material region; and

coloring component decomposing means for decomposing the coloring component of liquid material, and

wherein the coloring component decomposing means is operated according to the excess amount of liquid material to thereby decompose the excess amount of coloring component.

16. The display manufacturing apparatus according to claim 15, wherein the coloring component decomposing means is configured by an excimer laser light source that can generate excimer laser light.

17. The display manufacturing apparatus according to any one of claims 1 to 16, wherein the electromechanical conversion elements are piezoelectric vibrators.

18. A display manufacturing method using a display manufacturing apparatus comprising:

pressure chambers communicating with nozzle openings;

electromechanical conversion elements capable of changing the volume of the pressure chambers;

an injection head capable of discharging the liquid material in the pressure chambers out of the nozzle openings by the operation of the electromechanical conversion elements; and

driving pulse generating means capable of generating driving pulses to be supplied to the electromechanical conversion elements; and

manufacturing a display by hitting liquid material discharged out of nozzle openings to a plurality of liquid material regions provided on a substrate of the display, the method comprising;

a liquid material discharge step of discharging liquid material to each liquid material region by supplying driving pulses needed to discharge the target amount of liquid material to the electromechanical conversion elements;

a correction amount acquisition step of detecting the hitting amount of liquid material by the liquid material amount detecting means at each liquid material region and acquiring the short or excess amount of liquid material according to the difference between the hitting amount of liquid material detected by the detecting means and the target amount of liquid material at each liquid material region; and

a liquid material supplementation step of supplementing the short amount of liquid material, when the hitting amount of liquid material is less than the target amount of liquid material, by setting a waveform of the driving pulses according to the short amount thereof, enabling the driving pulse generating means to generate the set waveform of the driving pulses and to supply them to the electromechanical conversion elements.

19. The display manufacturing method according to claim 18, performing a liquid material decomposition step, where the coloring components in liquid material are decomposed by the operation of the coloring component decomposing means, when the hitting amount of liquid material exceeds the target amount of liquid material, later than performing the step for acquiring the correction amount of liquid material.