Patent Application
20220367764
This application claims the priority benefit of China application serial no. 202110512884.9, filed on May 11, 2021. The entirety of the above-mentioned patent application is hereby incorporated by reference herein and made a part of this specification.
The disclosure relates to an optical substrate and a manufacturing method thereof, and in particular, relates to an optical substrate and a manufacturing method thereof through which infiltration of water vapor may be reduced or reliability may be improved.
Display panels have been widely applied in electronic devices such as mobile phones, televisions, monitors, tablet computers, car displays, wearable devices, and desktop computers. With the vigorous development of electronic products, the demand for improved display quality of the electronic products continues to grow, and as such, the electronic devices used for display aim to provide more reliable display effects.
The disclosure provides an optical substrate and a manufacturing method thereof through which infiltration of water vapor may be reduced or reliability may be improved.
According to an embodiment of the disclosure, an optical substrate includes a base layer, a bank layer, a wavelength conversion unit, and a first encapsulating layer. The bank layer is disposed on the base layer and includes a first bank portion separated from an edge of the base layer. The wavelength conversion unit is disposed on the base layer and is adjacent to a side of the first bank portion away from the edge. The first encapsulating layer is disposed on the bank layer, the wavelength conversion unit, and a portion of the base layer not covered by the bank layer and the wavelength conversion unit.
According to an embodiment of the disclosure, a manufacturing method of an optical substrate includes the following steps. A base layer is provided. A bank layer is formed on the base layer. Herein, the bank layer has a first opening and a second opening. A wavelength conversion unit is formed in the first opening. A first encapsulating layer is formed on the bank layer, the wavelength conversion unit, and a portion of the base layer corresponding to the second opening.
To make the aforementioned more comprehensible, several embodiments accompanied with drawings are described in detail as follows.
The accompanying drawings are included to provide a further understanding of the disclosure, and are incorporated in and constitute a part of this specification. The drawings illustrate exemplary embodiments of the disclosure and, together with the description, serve to explain the principles of the disclosure.
The accompanying drawings are included together with the detailed description provided below to provide a further understanding of the disclosure. Note that in order to make the accompanying drawings to be more comprehensible to readers and for the sake of clarity of the accompanying drawings, only part of the electronic device is depicted in the accompanying drawings of the disclosure, and specific components in the drawings are not depicted according to actual scales. In addition, the numbers and sizes of the components in each drawing are provided for illustration only and are not used to limit the scope of the disclosure.
In the following specification and claims, the words “containing” and “including” are open-ended words and therefore should be interpreted as “containing but not limited to . . . ”.
It should be understood that when a component or a film layer is referred to as being “on” or “connected to” another component or film layer, it can be directly on the another component or film layer or be directly connected to the another component or film layer, or an inserted component or film layer may be provided therebetween (not a direct connection). In contrast, when the component is referred to as being “directly on” another component or film layer or “directly connected to” another component or film layer, an inserted component or film layer is not provided therebetween.
Although the terms “first”, “second”, “third” . . . may be used to describe various components, the components are not limited to these terms. These terms are only used to distinguish a single component from other components in the specification. The same terms may not be used in the claims, and the components in the claims may be replaced with first, second, third . . . according to the order declared by the components in the claims. Therefore, in the following description, the first component may be the second component in the claims.
In the text, the terms “about”, “approximately”, “substantially”, and “roughly” usually mean within 10%, 5%, 3%, 2%, 1%, or 0.5% of a given value or range. The number given here is an approximate number, that is, the meanings of “about”, “approximately”, “substantially”, and “roughly” may still be implied without specifying “about”, “approximately”, “substantially”, and “roughly”. In addition, the wordings “the range is from the first numerical value to the second numerical value” and “the range falls between the first numerical value and the second numerical value” mean that the range includes the first numerical value, the second numerical value, and other numerical values therebetween.
In some embodiments of the disclosure, regarding the words such as “connected”, “interconnected”, etc. referring to bonding and connection, unless specifically defined, these words mean that two structures are in direct contact or two structures are not in direct contact, and other structures are provided to be disposed between the two structures. The word for joining and connecting may also include the case where both structures are movable or both structures are fixed. In addition, the word “coupled” may include any direct or indirect electrical connection means.
In the disclosure, the length, width, thickness, height, area, or the distance or spacing between components may be measured by an optical microscope (OM), a scanning electron microscope (SEM), a film thickness profile measuring instrument (α-step), an elliptical thickness measuring instrument, or other suitable methods. To be specific, according to some embodiments, a scanning electron microscope may be used to obtain an image of the cross-sectional structure of the component to be measured, and to measure the width, thickness, height, or area of each component, or the distance or spacing between the components, but it is not limited thereto. In addition, a certain error may be provided between any two values or directions used for comparison.
The optical substrate provided by the disclosure may be applied to an electronic device such as a display device, an antenna device (e.g., a liquid crystal antenna), a sensing device, a light emitting device, a touch device, or a spliced device, but it is not limited thereto. The electronic device may include a bendable and flexible electronic device. The appearance of the electronic device may be rectangular, circular, polygonal, or a shape with curved edges, or other suitable shapes. The display device may include but not limited to a light emitting diode (LED), liquid crystal, fluorescence, phosphor, or quantum dot (QD) material, other suitable materials, or a combination of the foregoing, for example. The light emitting diode may include but not limited to an organic LED (OLED), an inorganic LED, a mini LED, a micro LED, or a QD LED (QDLED), other suitable materials, or a combination of the foregoing, for example. The display device may also include but not limited to a spliced display device, for example. The antenna device may be but not limited to a liquid crystal antenna, for example. The antenna device may include but not limited to an antenna spliced device, for example. Note that the electronic device may be any combination of the foregoing, but is not limited thereto. Besides, the appearance of the electronic device may be rectangular, circular, polygonal, or a shape with curved edges, or other suitable shapes. The electronic device may have a peripheral system such as a driving system, a control system, a light source system, a shelf system, etc., to support the display device, the antenna device, or the spliced device. Hereinafter, an optical substrate is provided herein to describe the content of the disclosure, but the disclosure is not limited thereto.
It should be understood that in the following embodiments, the features of several different embodiments may be replaced, recombined, and mixed to complete other embodiments without departing from the spirit of the disclosure. As long as the features of the embodiments do not violate or do not conflict with the spirit of the disclosure, they may be mixed and matched arbitrarily.
Descriptions of the disclosure are given with reference to the exemplary embodiments illustrated by the accompanying drawings. Wherever possible, the same reference numbers are used in the drawings and the description to refer to the same or like parts.
A manufacturing method of the optical substrate 100 provided by this embodiment is described as follows.
With reference to
Next, before the bank layer 120 is formed on the base layer 110, a black matrix layer 150 may be formed on the base layer 110 first. The black matrix layer 150 may include an opening 151 disposed in the active region 112. Herein, the opening 151 may expose a portion of the base layer 110. In some embodiments, a material of the black matrix layer 150 may include but not limited to a light-absorbing material such as black matrix (BM) resin or other suitable light-absorbing materials.
Next, the bank layer 120 is formed on the base layer 110. In this embodiment, the bank layer 120 is disposed on the black matrix layer 150, so that the black matrix layer 150 may be disposed between the base layer 110 and the bank layer 120, and the bank layer 120 may be substantially overlap with the black matrix layer 150 in the normal direction of the base layer 110. The bank layer 120 may include the first bank portion 121, a second bank portion 122, a third bank portion 123, a first opening 124, and a second opening 125. The first bank portion 121, the second bank portion 122, the first opening 124, and the second opening 125 are disposed in the active region 112, and the third bank portion 123 is disposed in the frame region 113. Herein, the cutting line 114 may also be disposed at a junction between the second bank portion 122 and the third bank portion 123.
To be specific, the first opening 124 may be connected to and overlap with the opening 151 of the black matrix layer 150, so that the first opening 124 and the opening 151 may expose a portion of the base layer 110. The second opening 125 is disposed between the first bank portion 121 and the second bank portion 122. The second opening 125 may expose a portion 152 of the black matrix layer 150, so that the portion 152 of the black matrix layer 150 is not covered by the bank layer 120. The second opening 125 may be closer to the cutting line 114 of the base layer 110 than the first opening 124. Besides, a width W1 of the second opening 125 may be greater than or equal to 3 nm (i.e., W1≥3 nm), for example, but it is not limited thereto. Herein, the width W1 is, for example, a maximum width of the second opening 125 measured in an extending direction of the local cross-sectional view, and the extending direction of the local cross-sectional view is perpendicular to the normal direction of the base layer 110.
The second bank portion 122 may be separated from the first bank portion 121 through the second opening 125. The second bank portion 122 may be closer to the cutting line 114 of the base layer 110 than the first bank portion 121. A width W2 of the second bank portion 122 may be greater than 0 nm (i.e., W2>0 nm), for example, but it is not limited thereto. Herein, the width W2 is, for example, a maximum width of the second bank portion 122 measured in the extending direction of the local cross-sectional view. Besides, in this embodiment, a material of the bank layer 120 may include but not limited to a light-absorbing material and/or a reflective material, such as a photoresist material (e.g., acrylic resin or siloxane), black resin, a metal material, other suitable materials, or a combination of the foregoing materials.
Next, with reference to
Besides, in this embodiment, the wavelength conversion unit 130 may cover the color filtering layer 160. The wavelength conversion unit 130 may be adjacent to the side 1211 of the first bank portion 121 away from the edge 111. The wavelength conversion unit 130 may include quantum dots, fluorescence, phosphorescence, other suitable materials, or a combination of the foregoing materials, but it is not limited thereto. The wavelength conversion unit 130 may be configured to cover a first light ray provided by a light-emitting unit (not shown) into a second light ray. The first light ray has a first peak wavelength, the second light ray has a second peak wavelength, and the first peak wavelength is less than the second peak wavelength. The wavelength conversion unit 130 may be formed in the first opening 124 through, for example, a yellow photolithography process or an ink-jet printing process, but it is not limited thereto.
Next, with reference to
In this embodiment, through once processing, the first encapsulating layer 140 featuring a water-resist effect may contact and cover the top surface 1212 and the side surface 1213 of the first bank portion 121 of the bank layer 120 together, and in this way, infiltration caused water vapor passing through the first bank portion 121 may be accordingly reduced. In turn, reliability of the optical substrate 100 provided by this embodiment may be improved, especially for the optical substrate 100 including the wavelength conversion unit 130 that is susceptible to failure as affected by external water vapor or for a spliced display (zero border tiling display) including the optical substrate 100, but it is not limited thereto.
In this embodiment, since the second opening 125 of the bank layer 120, the portion 152 of the black matrix layer 150, and the portion 115 of the base layer 110 may overlap with one another in the normal direction of the base layer 110, the first encapsulating layer 140 may contact and cover the portion 152 of the black matrix layer 150 through the second opening 125. In this embodiment, a material of the first encapsulating layer 140 may include but not limited to silicon nitride (SiNx), silicon oxide (SiOx), silicon oxynitride (SiOxNy), and aluminum oxide (Al2O3), other transparent inorganic compounds having a water-resist effect, or a combination of the foregoing. A manufacturing method of the first encapsulating layer 140 may include but not limited to chemical vapor deposition (CVD), atomic layer deposition (ALD), spin coating, spray coating, physical vapor deposition (PVD), ink-jet printing, or other suitable coating processes.
Next, with reference to
Next, with reference to 1E, after the base layer 110, the black matrix layer 150, the bank layer 120, the first encapsulating layer 140, the adhesive layer 170, and the driver substrate 180 are cut along the cutting line 114, the second encapsulating layer 142 may be additionally formed on the edge 111 which is exposed after the base layer 110 is cut, on the edge 153 which is exposed after the black matrix layer 150 is cut, on the edge 1223 which is exposed after the second bank portion 122 is cut, and on the edge 143 which is exposed after the first encapsulating layer 140 is cut as needed. In this way, the second encapsulating layer 142 may cover the edge 111 of the base layer 110, the edge 153 of the black matrix layer 150, the edge 1223 of the second bank portion 122, and the edge 143 of the first encapsulating layer 140. Accordingly, the second encapsulating layer 142 featuring the water-resist effect may also contact and cover the edge 153 which is exposed after the black matrix layer 150 is cut, so that infiltration caused by water vapor passing through the black matrix layer 150 is reduced, and the reliability of the optical substrate 100 provided by this embodiment is further improved.
However, since a thickness (e.g., approximately 1 micrometer) of the black matrix layer 150 is much smaller than a thickness (e.g., approximately 8 micrometers) of the second bank portion 122, compared with the second bank portion 122, the probability of infiltration of water vapor through the black matrix layer 150 is lower. Therefore, in some embodiments, the second encapsulating layer is not required to be additionally provided to cover the edge (not shown) which is exposed after the black matrix layer is cut. Herein, the thickness of the black matrix layer 150 is, for example, a maximum thickness of the black matrix layer 150 measured in the normal direction of the base layer 110, and the thickness of the second bank portion 122 is, for example, a maximum thickness of the second bank portion 122 measured in the normal direction of the base layer 110.
In this embodiment, the first encapsulating layer 140 may contact the second encapsulating layer 142. The second bank portion 122 of the bank layer 120 may be closer to the edge 111 of the base layer 110 than the first bank portion 121. Manufacturing of the optical substrate 100 of this embodiment is completed so far.
Other embodiments are described for illustration in the following. It should be noted that the reference numerals and part of the content in the previous embodiment are used in the following embodiments, in which identical reference numerals indicate identical or similar components, and repeated description of the same technical content is omitted. Please refer to the descriptions of the previous embodiment for the omitted part, which will not be repeated hereinafter.
To be specific, with reference to
Next, with reference to
In this embodiment, since the first encapsulating layer 140 featuring the water-resist effect may further contact and cover the side surface 150a1 of the first black matrix layer 150a, infiltration caused by water vapor passing through the first black matrix layer 150a is reduced, and the reliability of the optical substrate 100a provided by this embodiment is further improved.
In addition, the manufacturing method provided by this embodiment further includes the following step. After the first encapsulating layer 140 is formed on the bank layer 120, the wavelength conversion unit 130, and the portion 115 of the base layer 110, a light absorbing unit 190 is formed in the third opening 154 of the black matrix layer 150. The light absorbing unit 190 may be formed in the third opening 154 through, for example, a yellow photolithography process or an ink-jet printing (IJP) process. Herein, the light absorbing unit 190 may be disposed on the portion 115 of the base layer 110, and the light absorbing unit 190 may be disposed between the first bank portion 121 and the second bank portion 122 of the bank layer 120. Further, the first bank portion 121 may be disposed between the light absorbing unit 190 and the wavelength conversion unit 130. In this embodiment, a thickness T1 of the light absorbing unit 190 may be, for example, greater than or equal to a thickness T2 of the black matrix layer 150 (i.e., T1≥T2), but it is not limited thereto. Herein, the thickness T1 is, for example, a maximum thickness of the light absorbing unit 190 measured in the normal direction of the base layer 110, and the thickness T2 is, for example, a maximum thickness of the black matrix layer 150 measured in the normal direction of the base layer 110. A material of the light absorbing unit 190 may include but not limited to a light-absorbing material such as black resin, black ink, a black adhesive, other suitable light-absorbing materials, or a combination of the foregoing materials.
Next, with reference to
To be specific, with reference to
Next, with reference to
Next, with reference to
To be specific, with reference to
Next, with reference to
In this embodiment, since the first encapsulating layer 140 featuring the water-resist effect may further contact and cover the side surface 150a1 of the first black matrix layer 150a, infiltration caused by water vapor passing through the first black matrix layer 150a is reduced, and the reliability of the optical substrate 100c provided by this embodiment is further improved.
In addition, the manufacturing method provided by this embodiment further includes the following step. After the first encapsulating layer 140c is formed on the bank layer 120b, the wavelength conversion unit 130, and the portion 115c of the base layer 110, a light absorbing unit 190c is formed in the third opening 154c of the black matrix layer 150. Herein, the light absorbing unit 190c may be disposed on the portion 115c of the base layer 110, and the light absorbing unit 190c may be disposed between the first bank portion 121b and the third bank portion 123 of the bank layer 120. The light absorbing unit 190c may be disposed at a side of the first bank portion 121b adjacent to the edge 111. Further, the first bank portion 121b may be disposed between the light absorbing unit 190c and the wavelength conversion unit 130. In this embodiment, a thickness T3 of the light absorbing unit 190c may be, for example, greater than or equal to a thickness T4 of the black matrix layer 150 (i.e., T3≥T4), but it is not limited thereto. Herein, the thickness T3 is, for example, a maximum thickness of the light absorbing unit 190c measured in the normal direction of the base layer 110, and the thickness T4 is, for example, a maximum thickness of the black matrix layer 150 measured in the normal direction of the base layer 110.
Next, with reference to
In view of the foregoing, in the optical substrate and the manufacturing method thereof provided by the embodiments of the disclosure, through once processing, the first encapsulating layer may contact and cover the top surface and the side surface of the first bank portion of the bank layer together, and in this way, infiltration caused water vapor passing through the first bank portion may be accordingly reduced. In turn, reliability of the optical substrate provided by the embodiments of the disclosure may be improved, especially for the optical substrate including the wavelength conversion unit that is susceptible to failure as affected by external water vapor or for a spliced display (zero border tiling display) including the optical substrate, but it is not limited thereto. In addition, in the embodiments of the disclosure, the second encapsulating layer may be additionally disposed as needed, and the second encapsulating layer may be arranged to contact and cover the edge of the black matrix layer. In this way, infiltration caused by water vapor passing through the black matrix layer may be reduced, and the reliability of the optical substrate may thus be improved. Further, in some embodiments of the disclosure, since the first encapsulating layer may further contact and cover the side surface of the first black matrix layer, infiltration caused by water vapor passing through the first black matrix layer is reduced, and the reliability of the optical substrate is therefore further improved.
It will be apparent to those skilled in the art that various modifications and variations can be made to the disclosed embodiments without departing from the scope or spirit of the disclosure. In view of the foregoing, it is intended that the disclosure covers modifications and variations provided that they fall within the scope of the following claims and their equivalents.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 202110512884.9 | May 2021 | CN | national |
