Brother Kogyo Kabushiki-kaisha

National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology

Motohiro Yasui

Jun Akedo

Hiroto Sugahara

Sou Baba

Kazuo Kobayashi

A film forming apparatus includes a film forming chamber for performing a film formation; an exhaust unit connected to the film forming chamber to discharge a gas out of the film forming chamber; a holder provided in the film forming chamber to hold a process-objective material; a jetting nozzle provided in the film forming chamber on which a jetting port is formed in a slit shape, and jetting an aerosol containing particulate material to form a film made of the particulate material on the process-objective material; and a shielding member provided at a side of the jetting port in a longitudinal direction of the jetting port to cover a side of a jet flow of the aerosol jetted from the jetting port. Accordingly, it is possible to suppress a turbulence of a flow of the aerosol due to an exhaust flow, and to form the film uniformly.

Film forming apparatus and method of film formation

A simple method is provided for manufacturing a film such as a piezoelectric film wherein the adhesiveness of the film on a substrate can be improved. An aerosol containing particles is ejected onto a substrate so that the particles adhere thereto, wherein the ratio between the Vickers hardness Hv(b) of the adhesion surface to which the particles are attached in the substrate, and the Vickers hardness Hv(p) of the particles is within a range of 0.39&#x2266;Hv(p)/Hv(b)&#x2266;3.08. The adhesiveness between the particles and the substrate can thereby be improved to reliably form a film. The present invention can be satisfactorily applied to the formation of a piezoelectric film.

Method for manufacturing film or piezoelectric film

A film-forming nozzle is moved so that a boundary portion of a plurality of areas on which a piezoelectric material layer is formed by a film-forming nozzle moving relative to a vibration plate is positioned outside deformable portions of the vibration plate and overlaps with restricted portions. This reduces stress concentration on a portion of the piezoelectric layer corresponding to the boundary portion of the deposition areas, and therefore, damage of the piezoelectric material layer is prevented.

Method for producing piezoelectric actuator, method for producing liquid droplet jetting apparatus, piezoelectric actuator, and liquid droplet jetting apparatus

A film forming apparatus including a film forming chamber which forms a film, a jetting mechanism which jets aerosol containing material particles onto a substrate in the film forming chamber, a measuring chamber communicating with the film forming chamber, a measuring mechanism which measures a thickness of the film in the measuring chamber, a pressure adjusting mechanism which controls an internal pressure of the film forming chamber and the measuring chamber, a conveyor which transports the substrate between the film forming chamber and the measuring chamber, and a blocking section which blocks a communication between the film forming chamber and the measuring chamber. Accordingly, inside of the measuring chamber is maintained clean without being polluted with the aerosol, and the measurement precision can be maintained. In the film forming process, the film thickness can be easily and precisely measured, and fed back to the film forming condition.

Film forming apparatus, film forming method and method for manufacturing piezoelectric actuator

There is provided an aerosol generating apparatus which is capable of generating aerosol stably. The aerosol generating apparatus includes a container which mixes a particulate material and a carrier gas to generate a fluidized bed of the particulate material; an aerosol delivery tube which sucks a part of the fluidized bed to deliver the part as an aerosol containing the particulate material and the carrier gas; an optical sensor which measures a position of the fluidized bed; and an adjusting unit which adjusts the position of the aerosol delivery tube based on an information about the position of the fluidized bed measured by the optical sensor. By moving an end of the aerosol delivery tube horizontally along and relative to the top surface of the fluidized bed, it is possible to avoid harmful effect that particle size distribution in the fluidized bed becomes locally non-uniform.

Aerosol generating apparatus, method for generating aerosol and film forming apparatus

A film-forming apparatus includes a mixing section which mixes material particles and core particles having a large particle size than that of the material particles; a separating section which separates the material particles and the core particles; an aerosol-generator which generates aerosol by dispersing the separated material particles in a carrier gas; and a nozzle which ejects the aerosol containing the material particles. The core particles having the large particle size can be easily controlled in terms of transport amount of the core particles, as compared to the material particles which are fine particles used for the film formation. Further, since the core particles hardly cause clog-up in the system, the concentration of aerosol can be maintained stably by appropriately controlling the transport amount of the core particles.

Film-forming apparatus, film-forming method and particle-supplying apparatus

A film forming apparatus includes an aerosol generating section which generates an aerosol; a jetting nozzle having an internal passage formed therein and through which the aerosol flows, the internal passage having one end serving as a supply port of the aerosol and having other end serving as a jetting port of the aerosol; a narrowed channel which is provided in the internal passage and which has a channel area narrower than a channel area on an upstream of the narrowed channel; and a collision portion which is provided in the internal passage on a downstream of the narrowed channel, and against which a flow of the aerosol passed through the narrowed channel collides. Since the aggregated particles are crushed and supplied from the jetting nozzle in the form of fine particles, a thin and uniform film can be formed on the process-objective material.

Film forming apparatus and jetting nozzle

In the annealing step of the method for manufacturing a piezoelectric actuator, the annealing in conducted in two steps: a first annealing step; and a second annealing step conducted at a temperature lower and for a time longer than those of the first annealing step. With such treatment, first, grain growth inside the piezoelectric film can be sufficiently induced, while minimizing the diffusion layer growth, by the first annealing step conducted at a high temperature within a short interval, and then lattice defects in the particles can be sufficiently corrected, while preventing the diffusion layer growth, by the second annealing step conducted at a temperature lower and for a time longer than those of the first annealing step. Accordingly, the piezoelectric characteristic can be improved by sufficiently conducting annealing, while restricting the thickness of the diffusion layer to a range where the piezoelectric characteristic is not affected.

Method for producing piezoelectric actuator and method for producing ink-jet head

A method of producing a piezoelectric actuator includes the steps of: forming a first electrode layer on a substrate by jetting an aerosol containing particles of a conductive material and ceramic particles onto the substrate to make the particles adhere to the substrate; forming a piezoelectric layer on the first electrode layer by jetting an aerosol containing particles of a piezoelectric material onto the first electrode layer to make the particles adhere to the electrode; performing an annealing treatment for the piezoelectric layer; and forming, on the piezoelectric layer, a second electrode layer paring with the first electrode layer. Accordingly, the adherence between the substrate and the first electrode layer and between the first electrode layer and the piezoelectric layer are improved, thereby hardly causing exfoliation of the layers due to differences in coefficients of thermal expansion between the layers.

Method of producing composite material, method of producing piezoelectric actuator, method of producing ink-jet head, and piezoelectric actuator

A piezo-electric film forming method includes (1) a first moving step of moving a nozzle with respect to a substrate along a first direction to form a first piezo-electric band extending along the first direction, (2) a measuring step of measuring thickness distribution along the width of the first piezo-electric band, (3) a calculating step of calculating a shifting distance based on the thickness distribution, (4) a shifting step of moving the nozzle with respect to the substrate along a second direction by the calculated shifting distance, wherein the second direction intersects with the first direction, and (5) a second moving step of moving the nozzle with respect to the substrate along the first direction to form a second piezo-electric band extending along the first direction. The piezo-electric film is formed such that the first piezo-electric band and the second piezo-electric band are overlapped.

Method and device of forming a piezo-electric film

A method for a piezoelectric actuator and an ink-jet head uses, for forming a lower electrode on a vibration plate, metal-nano particles which can start to sinter with a low temperature as a conductive material; and uses, for forming a piezoelectric layer, an aerosol deposition method requiring no calcination step. Accordingly, upon forming the lower electrode and piezoelectric layer, any calcination under severe condition is not needed. In addition, the calcination of the lower electrode can be advanced simultaneously with an annealing step required after forming the piezoelectric layer. Accordingly, the thermal cycle during producing process can be minimized, thereby suppressing the exfoliation of layers and diffusion of material forming vibration plate into the piezoelectric layer due to thermal history, and consequently lower the degradation of piezoelectric characteristics.

Method of producing a piezoelectric actuator and an ink-jet head

A lower electrodeincluding a low-temperature melting layerA and a high-temperature melting layerB having mutually different melting-start temperatures is provided between a vibration plateand a piezoelectric layer. In a calcination step of calcinating the lower electrode, the calcination is performed at a low temperature at which only the low-temperature melting layerA melts, and in an annealing-process step of the piezoelectric layer, the annealing process is performed at a high temperature at which the high-temperature melting layerB melts. At this time, in the calcination step, the melting of platinum nano-particles occurs in the low-temperature melting layerA, rendering the adhesion and diffusion-preventive effect. Further, in the annealing step, in the high-temperature melting layerB, platinum particles are melted, rendering the adhesion and diffusion-preventive effect. The degradation of piezoelectric characteristics of the piezoelectric actuator can be suppressed by the annealing process.

Method of producing a piezoelectric actuator

A piezoelectric material layer is easily formed on a partial region of the substrate surface. By forming a different hardness material layer that has a different hardness from that of the substrate in the form of a pattern on the surface of the substrate, a film-deposition permitting region A to which particles of a piezoelectric material in a carrier gas adhere in a form of a film and a film-deposition inhibiting region B which inhibits the formation of a film are provided. Further, when a carrier gas containing particles of a piezoelectric material are ejected onto the surface of the substrate by means of AD, a film-like piezoelectric material layer is formed as a result of the adhesion of the particles in the film-deposition permitting region A. As a result, the piezoelectric material layer can be formed easily in a partial region of the surface of the substrate.

Piezoelectric actuator and method of fabricating piezoelectric actuator

In a method for manufacturing a piezoelectric actuator, the piezoelectric layer is formed by using material particles M having a composition which differs from an optimum composition by a diffusion amount of Ti. The piezoelectric layer has a two-layer structure including a first piezoelectric layer formed on a vibration plate and a second piezoelectric layer laminated on the first piezoelectric layer. Only the first piezoelectric layer has a composition different from the optimum composition, and the second piezoelectric layer laminated thereupon has the optimum composition. When the piezoelectric layer of such a two-layer structure is subjected to the annealing treatment, the composition of the first piezoelectric layer is corrected and becomes the optimum composition by the diffusion of a diffusion element. On the other hand, because the diffusion does not advance to the second piezoelectric layer which is on the farther side from the vibration plate, the optimum composition of the second piezoelectric layer is maintained.

Method for producing piezoelectric actuator, method for producing ink-jet head, and piezoelectric actuator

The present invention provides a simple method using aerosol deposition, for manufacturing a piezoelectric film that will simultaneously satisfy various characteristics required of a piezoelectric film. In the method, the piezoelectric film is formed on a substrate by ejecting an aerosol containing particles of a piezoelectric material onto the substrate so that the particles adhere thereto, and a second piezoelectric layer is formed on the first piezoelectric layer by conducting the ejection such that energy used for crushing the particles when the particles collide with the substrate is less than in the formation of the first piezoelectric film.

Growing community of inventors

Nagoya, Japan

Motohiro Yasui