Patent Application
20200103572
This application claims the priority benefit of Taiwan application serial no. 107134630, filed on Oct. 1, 2018. The entirety of the above-mentioned patent application is hereby incorporated by reference herein and made a part of this specification.
The invention relates to a polarizer substrate and more particularly, to a polarizer substrate having barrier structures and a manufacturing method thereof.
Description of Related Art
In a liquid crystal display panel, polarizer structures are usually disposed on the upper and lower substrates. The direction of the absorption axis of the polarizer structures is determined through the extension direction of the polarizer structures. Since only the light with the polarization direction perpendicular to the absorption axis of the polarizer structures can pass through the polarizer structures, rotation of the liquid crystal between the upper and lower substrates can be used to adjust whether light is allowed to pass through the liquid crystal display panel. Nevertheless, in order to enable the liquid crystal display panel to provide favorable display quality, how to increase the transmittance and extinction ratio of the polarizer structures is an important issue.
The invention provides a polarizer substrate having a high transmittance and a high extinction ratio.
The invention provides a manufacturing method of a polarizer substrate, capable of obtaining a polarizer substrate having a high transmittance and a high extinction ratio.
At least one embodiment of the invention provides a polarizer substrate, including a substrate, a plurality of strip-shaped polarizer structures, a plurality of barrier structures and a passivation layer. The strip-shaped polarizer structures are disposed on the substrate. Each of the strip-shaped polarizer structures includes a wire-grid and a strip-shaped capping structure disposed on the wire-grid. The barrier structures are disposed on the strip-shaped capping structures and do not contact with side walls of the wire-grids. A gap between two adjacent barrier structures is smaller than a gap between two adjacent wire-grids. The passivation layer is disposed on the barrier structures.
At least one embodiment of the invention provides a manufacturing method of a polarizer substrate, including: forming a wire-grid material layer above a substrate; forming a capping material layer on the wire-grid material layer; forming a patterned photoresist layer on the capping material layer; patterning the capping material layer using the patterned photoresist layer as a mask to form a plurality of strip-shaped capping structures; performing first etching on the wire-grid material layer using the strip-shaped capping structure as a mask; performing second etching on the wire-grid material layer using the strip-shaped capping structure as a mask to form a plurality of wire-grids, and forming a plurality of barrier structures on the strip-shaped capping structures while the second etching is performed, wherein an etching rate of the first etching is greater than an etching rate of the second etching, and a gap between two adjacent barrier structures is smaller than a gap between two adjacent wire-grid.
In order to make the aforementioned and other features and advantages of the invention more comprehensible, several embodiments accompanied with figures are described in detail below.
The accompanying drawings are included to provide a further understanding of the invention, and are incorporated in and constitute a part of this specification. The drawings illustrate embodiments of the invention and, together with the description, serve to explain the principles of the invention.
Referring to
A color transferring element 120 is formed on the substrate 100. In some embodiments, the color transferring element 120 includes various colors. For example, the color transferring element 120 includes a red filter element, a green filter element and a blue filter element, and the black matrix 110 is disposed between different color filter elements.
An organic planarization layer 130 is formed on the substrate 100, and the organic planarization layer 130 is disposed on the substrate 100. In the present embodiment, the organic planarization layer 130 is disposed on the black matrix 110 and the color transferring element 120.
A wire-grid material layer 140 is formed above the substrate 100. In the present embodiment, the wire-grid material layer 140 is formed on the organic planarization layer 130. In some embodiments, a buffer layer or other film layers may be further included between the wire-grid material layer 140 and the organic planarization layer 130. In some embodiments, the wire-grid material layer 140 is directly formed on the substrate 100. The wire-grid material layer 140 is made of, for example, an inorganic material or an organic material. In some embodiments, the wire-grid material layer 140 is made of a metal (for example, gold, silver, copper, aluminum, other metals or an alloy of the aforementioned metals).
A capping material layer 150 is formed on the wire-grid material layer 140. The capping material layer 150 is made of, for example, an inorganic material or an organic material. In some embodiments, the capping material layer 150 is made of, for example, an insulation material (for example, silicon oxide, silicon nitride, silicon oxynitride or other insulation materials). In some embodiments, other material layers may be further formed on the capping material layer 150, but the invention is not limited thereto. The material of the wire-grid material layer 140 is different from that of the capping material layer 150.
Patterned photoresist material layer R is formed on the capping material layer 150. The patterned photoresist material layer R includes a plurality of openings O1. In some embodiments, the patterned photoresist material layer R is formed by using a nano-imprint lithography (NIL) technique, but the invention is not limited thereto.
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In some embodiments, the etching rates of the first etching and the second etching are controlled by adjusting etching power. For example, the etching power of the first etching is greater than the etching power of second etching.
In the present embodiment, since the etching rate of the second etching is smaller, a plurality of barrier structures 160 are formed on the strip-shaped capping structures 150′ while the second etching is performed. The barrier structures 160 are products formed by reacting an etching gas used during the second etching with a portion of the wire-grid material layer. In other words, when the second etching is performed, a portion of the wire-grid material layer 140 is moved onto the strip-shaped capping structures 150′ and reacted with the etching gas to form the barrier structures 160. A gap W1 between two adjacent barrier structures 160 is smaller than a gap W2 between two adjacent wire-grids 140′. In other embodiments, the gap W1 between two adjacent barrier structures 160 may be 0, in other words, the two adjacent barrier structures 160 may contact with each other. The barrier structures 160 are, for example, a strip shape (which are, for example, strips extending inwards in
In some embodiments, a method of performing the first etching and the second etching include applying an etching gas including a protective gas and a reactive gas to the wire-grid material layer 140. The protective gas includes, for example, boron trichloride (BCl3), carbon tetrachloride (CO4), trichloromethane (CHCl3), carbon tetrafluoride (CF4), chlortrifluoromethane (CHF3), hexafluoroethane (C2F6), fluorotrichloromethane (CFCl3), chlorotrifluormethane (CClF3), helium (He), nitrogen (N2), oxygen (O2), sulfur hexafluoride (SF6), silicon tetrachloride (SiCl4) or a combination of the aforementioned gases. The reactive gas includes, for example, argon (Ar), BCl3, chlorine (Cl2), CCl4, CHCl3, CF4, CHF3, C2F6, CFCl3, CClF3, He, N2, O2, SiCl4 or a combination of the aforementioned gases. In some embodiments, a range of the reactive gas in a gas flow is 10% to 70%. In some embodiments, a flow ratio of the reactive gas to the protective gas is 0.11 to 2.33.
In some embodiments, the flow ratio of the reactive gas to the protective gas is A/B, and A/B during the first etching is greater than A/B during the second etching. The etching rates of the first etching and the second etching are controlled by adjusting the flow ratio of the reactive gas to the protective gas.
In some embodiments, a material of the barrier structures 160 is different from that of the wire-grid material layer 140, and the material of the barrier structures 160 includes a composite of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen and/or chlorine and the material of the wire-grid material layer 140.
In some embodiments, after the portion of the wire-grid material layer 140 is removed by the first etching to remain 10% to 50% of a thickness, the second etching is performed. In other words, after the first etching is performed, a portion of the wire-grid material layer 140 on which the first etching is not performed has a thickness X1, a portion of the wire-grid material layer 140 on which the first etching is performed has a thickness X2, and X2/X1 is 10% to 50%. Thereby, the wire-grid material layer 140 may be prevented from being incompletely etched.
In the present embodiment, the barrier structures 160 do not contact with side walls SW of the wire-grids 140′, thereby increasing a transmittance and an extinction ratio of the polarizer substrate.
Referring to
In some embodiments, a material of the passivation layer 170 includes indium tin oxide, silicon oxide, silicon nitride, organic material or a combination of the aforementioned materials. In some embodiments, an electrode layer and an alignment layer may be further formed on the passivation layer 170, but the invention is not limited thereto.
The polarizer substrate 10 includes the substrate 100, the plurality of strip-shaped polarizer structures P, the plurality of barrier structures 160 and the passivation layer 170. The passivation layer 170 is disposed on the plurality of barrier structures 160′.
Even though in the present embodiment, the polarizer substrate 10 further includes the black matrix 110 and the color transferring element 120, but the invention is not limited thereto. In other embodiments, the polarizer substrate 10 further includes a pixel array, and the polarizer substrate 10 is a pixel array substrate.
In some embodiments, a material of the wire-grids 140′ is different from a material of the strip-shaped capping structures 150′. For example, the material of the wire-grids 140′ includes a metal, and the material of the capping structures 150′ includes silicon oxide, silicon nitride or silicon oxynitride, but the invention is not limited thereto.
In light of the foregoing, the process of etching the wire-grid material layer is divided into two sections in the invention, and thus, the barrier structures having smaller gaps are formed on the strip-shaped polarizer structures. In other words, the barrier structures can be formed on the strip-shaped polarizer structures without any additional coating or deposition process in the invention, thereby obtaining the polarizer substrate with a high transmittance and a high extinction ratio at a lower manufacturing cost.
Although the invention has been described with reference to the above embodiments, it will be apparent to one of the ordinary skill in the art that modifications to the described embodiment may be made without departing from the spirit of the invention. Accordingly, the scope of the invention will be defined by the attached claims not by the above detailed descriptions.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 107134630 | Oct 2018 | TW | national |
