Electric lamp or space discharge component or device manufacturi – Process – With assembly or disassembly
Reexamination Certificate
2003-01-27
2004-11-16
Patel, Vip (Department: 2879)
Electric lamp or space discharge component or device manufacturi
Process
With assembly or disassembly
C445S050000, C445S051000, C445S013000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06817915
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method of manufacturing an electron source including a large number of electron-emitting devices.
2. Related Background Art
Up to now, a surface conduction electron-emitting device has been known as an electron-emitting device. The surface conduction electron-emitting device utilizes a phenomenon that electron emission is developed by allowing a current to flow in a thin film of a small area, which is formed on a substrate, in parallel with the film surface. A structure of such a surface conduction electron-emitting device and a method of manufacturing such a device are disclosed, for example, in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 8-321254.
FIGS. 18A and 18B
schematically shows the general construction of a surface conduction electron-emitting device disclosed in the above publication or the like.
FIGS. 18A and 18B
are a plan view and a sectional side view of the electron-emitting device, respectively. In
FIGS. 18A and 18B
, reference numeral
1701
denotes a substrate,
1702
and
1703
denote a pair of electrodes facing each other,
1704
denotes an electroconductive film,
1705
denotes a second gap,
1706
denotes a carbon film, and
1707
denotes a first gap.
FIGS. 17A
to
17
D schematically shows an example of a manufacturing process for forming an electron-emitting device having the structure shown in
FIGS. 18A and 18B
.
The pair of electrodes
1702
and
1703
are first formed on the substrate
1701
(FIG.
17
A), followed by forming the electroconductive film
1704
for connecting between the electrodes
1702
and
1703
(FIG.
17
B).
Then, an electric current is fed between the electrodes
1702
and
1703
and the so-called “forming step” is performed for forming the second gap
1705
in a part of the electroconductive film
1704
(FIG.
17
C).
Subsequently, in a carbon compound atmosphere, a voltage is applied between the electrodes
1702
and
1703
to perform the so-called “activation step” by which the carbon film
1706
is formed on a part of the substrate
1701
within the area of the second gap
1705
and is also formed on a part of the electroconductive film
1704
in the vicinity of the second gap
1705
, resulting in an electron-emitting device (FIG.
17
D). Note that, in the “activation step”, a pulse voltage is repeatedly applied between the device electrodes
1702
and
1703
in an atmosphere containing an organic substance, whereby carbon and/or carbon compound is deposited on a device.
On the other hand, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 9-237571 discloses another method of manufacturing a surface conduction electron-emitting device. The method comprises a step of coating an organic material film such as a thermosetting resin, or the like on an electroconductive film and a step of carbonizing the coating, instead of the above-described “activation step”.
When an electron source including a plurality of the above-described electron-emitting devices is used, an image display apparatus can be structured by combining the electron source and an image-forming member comprised of a phosphor or the like.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
An electron source using conventional surface conduction electron-emitting devices roughly has the following two problems.
1) It is not necessarily easy to form a conductive film with a high accuracy in the films thickness and quality, thereby deteriorating uniformity in forming many electron-emitting devices in a flat panel display.
2) In order to form a narrow gap having good electron emission performance, many additional steps such as a step of forming an atmosphere containing an organic material, a step of precisely forming a polymer film on an electroconductive film, etc., thereby complicating control of each of the steps.
For solving the above problems, an object of the present invention is to provide a stable manufacturing method of an electron source and to provide a method of manufacturing an image-forming apparatus with no deficit and with excellent display quality at low cost.
The present invention has been made as a result of extensive studies for solving the above-mentioned problems and provides the manufacturing method described below.
That is, according to the present invention, there is provided a method of manufacturing an electron source comprising the steps of: (A) providing a substrate on which a plurality of units and wirings are arranged, each unit comprising a pair of electrodes and a polymer film for connecting the electrodes of the pair and the wirings respectively being connected to at least one of the plurality of units; (B) irradiating light onto a region of the substrate where two or more units and part of the wirings are arranged, to reduce resistivity of the polymer film in each of the two or more units; and (C) forming a gap in a film obtained by performing the step (B), wherein, at the irradiating light in step (B), a light absorptance of the wirings is lower than that of the electrodes.
The manufacturing method according to the present invention includes, as preferred aspects, “the irradiation of light is performed to all the plurality of units with sequential scanning”, “the light absorptance of the wirings is lower than a light absorptance of the pair of electrodes by 15% or more”, “a light absorptance of the wirings is 20% or less”, and the method further includes the step of arranging a coating layer on a base layer of the wirings, for the irradiation light in the step (B), a reflectivity of the coating layer being higher than that of the base layer. In one embodiment, the gap is formed by flowing an electric current through a film obtained by the step (B).
According to the method of manufacturing an electron source of the present invention, the electrode has a relatively high light absorptance or a relatively low light reflectance at the irradiating light wavelength. Thus, light is absorbed to the electrode to cause a temperature rise efficiently, and further, the temperature of the polymer film rises due to thermal conduction to thereby promote resistance reduction. On the other hand, the wiring connected to the electrode has a relatively low light absorptance or a relatively high light reflectance. Thus, most of the light irradiated to the wiring is reflected, and the temperature rise of the wiring can be suppressed.
Note that the wavelength range, intensity, and irradiation time of the light to be irradiated are adjusted such that: the temperature rise of the wiring stops at a temperature less than a heat-resistance temperature (melting point or softening point) of the wiring; and the temperature of the electrode rises efficiently, and the temperature rise of the polymer film due to thermal conduction from the electrode to the polymer film and the light absorption of the polymer film itself transforms the polymer film to attain sufficient resistance reduction.
As a result, the image display apparatus with no deficit of a display pixel can be obtained in which the wirings are not subjected to short circuit or breaking.
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Baba et al., “Field
Kyogaku Masafumi
Mizuno Hironobu
Leurig Sharlene
Patel Vip
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