JPH07243032A - Thin film forming equipment - Google Patents

Abstract

(57) [Summary] [Objective] To provide a technique capable of forming a metal thin film with a small amount of electric power without requiring a large amount of electric power. A thin film forming apparatus for forming a thin film by evaporating a material contained in a container and depositing it on a support, wherein the means for evaporating the material contained in the container has a field emission electron source. Thin film forming apparatus.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a magnetic recording medium manufacturing apparatus, for example.

[0002]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION In a magnetic recording medium such as a magnetic tape, due to a demand for high density recording, a binder resin is not used as a magnetic layer provided on a non-magnetic support, instead of a coating type using a binder resin. It is well known that a metal thin film type that is not used has been proposed.

That is, there has been proposed a magnetic recording medium having a magnetic layer formed by a wet plating means such as electroless plating, or a dry plating means such as vacuum deposition, sputtering or ion plating. Since the magnetic recording medium of this type has a high packing density of magnetic material, it is suitable for high-density recording. In particular, the means for forming the magnetic film by the vapor deposition means is said to be preferable because the film formation rate is higher than that by sputtering.

A magnetic recording medium manufacturing apparatus using such a vapor deposition means is generally constructed as shown in FIG. In FIG. 3, 31 is a cooling can roll, 32 is
a is polyethylene terephthalate (PET) film 3
3 is a supply side roll, 32b is a PET film 33 winding side roll, 34 is a shielding plate, 35 is a crucible, 36 is a magnetic alloy, and 37 is a vacuum container.

After evacuating the inside of the vacuum container 37 to a predetermined degree of vacuum, the crucible 35 is heated by means of electron beam heating, induction heating or resistance heating by a thermoelectron source.
The magnetic alloy 36 inside is heated, melted, and evaporated, and PE
A magnetic recording medium is manufactured by depositing (evaporating) the magnetic alloy 36 on the T film 33. By the way, in such a manufacturing method, a large amount of electric power is required for heating / melting and vaporizing the magnetic alloy 36, and there is a problem in terms of cost, and improvement is awaited.

Further, the thermoelectrons used for heating / melting and vaporizing the magnetic alloy 36 are scattered, and the scattered electrons are PET.
It often adheres to the film, and as a result, the PET film sticks to the cooling can roll 31 and the running property deteriorates, the magnetic film is not formed uniformly, and a magnetic recording medium having uniform characteristics cannot be efficiently obtained. I have also come to understand that there is a problem.

[0007]

DISCLOSURE OF THE INVENTION A first object of the present invention is to provide a technique capable of forming a metal thin film with a small electric power without requiring a large electric power. A second object of the present invention is to provide a technique capable of providing a metal thin film having uniform characteristics with good production yield without deteriorating the traveling property of the support during the work of forming the metal thin film.

An object of the present invention is a thin film forming apparatus for forming a thin film by evaporating a material contained in a container and depositing it on a support, and a means for evaporating the material contained in the container is provided. It is achieved by a thin film forming apparatus, which is a device having a field emission electron source.
In particular, a thin film forming apparatus for forming a thin film by evaporating a material contained in a container and depositing it on a support running between a supply means and a winding means, wherein the material contained in the container is This is achieved by a thin film forming apparatus characterized in that the means for vaporizing is a device having a field emission electron source.

Further, the above-mentioned structure does not require a large amount of electric power for heating, melting and vaporizing the material, which is extremely advantageous in terms of cost. And heating and melting,
Then, the scattering phenomenon of the electrons used for evaporation is small, and therefore the scattered electrons are rarely attached to the traveling body, and as a result, the traveling property is rarely deteriorated, and a uniform thin film is formed. A magnetic recording medium can be obtained with a good manufacturing yield. That is, it is possible to efficiently obtain a high-quality magnetic recording medium having excellent recording / reproducing characteristics.

[0010]

1 and 2 show an embodiment of the thin film forming apparatus of the present invention. FIG. 1 is a schematic view of the whole thin film forming apparatus,
FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram of a main part (electron gun equipped with a field emission electron source) of the thin film forming apparatus. In each figure, 1 is a cooling can roll, 2a is a supply side roll of the non-magnetic support body 3, 2b is a take-up side roll of the support body 4, 4 is an attachment plate, 5 is a crucible, 6 is a magnetic metal, 7 Is an electron gun equipped with a cold cathode field emission electron source, and 8 is a vacuum container. A vacuum pump for creating a high vacuum inside the vacuum container 8 is not shown.

The support 3 is non-magnetic, and the support 3 is made of polyester such as PET, polyamide, polyimide, polysulfone, polycarbonate, olefin resin such as polypropylene, cellulose resin, or vinyl chloride resin. Polymer materials such as resins, inorganic materials such as glass and ceramics, and metal materials such as aluminum alloys are used. An undercoat layer for improving the adhesion of the magnetic thin film is provided on the surface of the support 3. That is, by appropriately roughening the surface roughness, for example, the adhesion of the magnetic thin film formed by the oblique vapor deposition method is improved, and the surface roughness of the magnetic recording medium surface is moderated to improve the running property. Therefore, the undercoat layer is formed by providing a coating film containing particles such as SiO ₂ and having a thickness of 0.005 to 0.1 μm.

As the magnetic metal with which the crucible 5 is filled,
For example, in addition to metals such as Fe, Co and Ni, Co-Ni alloys, Co-Pt alloys, Co-Ni-Pt alloys, Fe-C
o alloy, Fe-Ni alloy, Fe-Co-Ni alloy, Fe
-Co-B alloy, Co-Ni-Fe-B alloy, Co-C
Examples thereof include r alloys and alloys containing a metal such as Al.

The electron gun 7 has the structure shown in FIG. 2, and can be used with a small electric power, has a small electron scattering phenomenon, and therefore has a small amount of scattered electrons traveling on a support. It is a thing. In FIG. 2, 7a is a refrigerator and 7
Reference numeral b is an electromagnetic lens for converging an electron beam. In the apparatus configured as described above, the inside of the vacuum container 8 is 10 ^-4 to 10 ^-6.
After evacuation to a vacuum degree of about Torr, for example, 2 × 10 ⁻⁵ Torr, the magnetic metal 6 in the crucible 5 is evaporated by the electron gun 7 and the magnetic metal 6 is vapor-deposited on the support 3 such as a PET film. Thus, a metal thin film type magnetic recording medium is manufactured.

When forming this magnetic thin film, oxygen gas is blown from the nozzle onto the vapor deposition portion of the magnetic metal 6 to forcibly oxidize the surface layer portion of the magnetic thin film. In this way, the magnetic thin film is formed, subjected to oxidation treatment, and wound on the winding side roll 2b. After that, the winding-side roll 2b is taken out, and a back coat paint comprising carbon black having an average particle size of 20 nm and a binder resin composed of a vinyl chloride resin and a urethane prepolymer is dispersed by a direct gravure method. A back coat layer having a dry thickness of 0.5 μm is provided by coating the support 3 on the opposite side.

Fluorine perfluoropolyether (grade: FOMBLIN ZDIAC carboxyl group modified, manufactured by Nippon Montedison Co., Ltd.) was diluted to 0.1% in a fluorine inert liquid (Fluorinert, FC-84, manufactured by Sumitomo 3M Limited). -The dispersed paint is applied to the magnetic surface by a die coating method so that the thickness after drying is about 20Å, and dried at 100 ° C.

After that, a slit is formed into a predetermined width to form a magnetic tape or the like. By the way, a magnetic tape was similarly produced by using an electron gun equipped with a conventional thermoelectron source instead of the electron gun 7. In order to strictly compare the two, the power supplied to the electron gun is 10 kV and the traveling speed of the support 3 is 100 m.
/ S. That is, only the difference between the electron gun equipped with the cold cathode field emission electron source and the one equipped with the thermionic electron source was used.

In the magnetic recording medium thus obtained, the thickness of the magnetic film is 2800 Å in the present embodiment, whereas it is 2000 Å in the comparative example, and the heating / melting, and It was thought that there is little phenomenon called scattering of electrons used for evaporation, but in the case of this example, the support has good traveling properties and a uniform thin film is formed. Is less than 1%, while the magnetic film of Comparative Example has a variation of 50% in thickness.

That is, according to the present invention, a magnetic film can be formed with a small amount of electric power, and the phenomenon of scattering of electrons used for heating, melting, and evaporation is small, so that scattered electrons are attached to a support. Is less, and the running property of the support is less likely to deteriorate, and a uniform magnetic film is formed. That is, it is possible to efficiently obtain a high-quality magnetic recording medium having excellent recording / reproducing characteristics.

[0019]

According to the present invention, a high quality magnetic recording medium having excellent recording / reproducing characteristics can be efficiently obtained.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a schematic view of an entire thin film forming apparatus (magnetic recording medium manufacturing apparatus) of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a schematic view of a main part (electron gun equipped with a field emission electron source) of the thin film forming apparatus of the invention.

FIG. 3 is a schematic view of a conventional magnetic recording medium manufacturing apparatus.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 Cooling Can Roll 2a Supply Side Roll 2b Winding Side Roll 3 Support 5 Crucible 6 Magnetic Metal 7 Electron Gun Equipped with Cold Cathode Field Emission Electron Source 8 Vacuum Container

 ─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continuation of the front page (72) Shigemi Wakabayashi Inventor Shigemi Wakabayashi 2606 Akabane, Kaiga-cho, Haga-gun, Tochigi Kao Co., Ltd.Institute of Information Science (72) Inventor Akira Shiga 2606 Akabane, Kaiga-cho, Haga-gun, Tochigi Kao Company Information Science Laboratory

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. A thin film forming apparatus for forming a thin film by evaporating a material contained in a container and depositing it on a support, wherein the means for evaporating the material contained in the container is a field emission electron source. An apparatus for forming a thin film, which is an apparatus having the apparatus. 2. The thin film forming apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the support on which the thin film is formed is configured to run between the supply means and the winding means.