Nec Corporation

Canon Kabushiki Kaisha

Japan Aviation Electronics Industry, Limited

Fuji Xerox Co., Ltd.

Atsushi Ochi

Harunobu Ogaki

Hiroki Uematsu

Yasuhiro Sasaki

Masataka Kawahara

Toshihiro Kikuchi

Akira Shimada

Akio Maruyama

Toru Mori

Takayuki Sumida

Mitsuru Yamamoto

Koji Takahashi

Takashi Saito

Kazuaki Utsumi

Takeshi Inoue

Kazunori Noguchi

Takeshi Yano

Sakae Kitajo

Yasuhiro Kawai

Hiroyuki Takahashi

Eiichi Sato

Hirofumi Nakamura

Seiji Takahashi

Kimihiro Yoshimura

Shinji Abe

Takashi Anezaki

Takashi Nakahara

Akio Koganei

Kyoichi Teramoto

Shio Murai

Mitsuru Furuya

Sadayuki Takahashi

Kazuyuki Mikubo

Yukari Kibi

Yoshitsugu Okada

Izumu Fukui

Junji Tabuchi

Kenji Kuramoto

Katsuhisa Ishikawa

Mitsuhiro Nakajima

Hirokazu Tohya

Shinji Ito

Masanori Suzuki

Yasushi Kinoshita

Masato Shirakata

Osamu Myohga

Hirotoshi Uesugi

Shiro Yoshida

Masatomo Yonezawa

Hiroshi Wabuka

Nobuo Kosaka

Tetsuo Yoshimoto

Yoshiki Inoue

Takeshige Hamatsuki

Osamu Inui

Kaneo Uehara

Takeshi Hosokawa

Harumi Sako

Yukari Shimizu

Tadahiko Horiguchi

Mitsuhiro Midorikawa

Hideaki Tamai

Souichiro Sugano

Hiroshi Ishikawa

A charge transport layer, which is the surface layer of an electrophotographic photosensitive member, contains a charge transporting material, and a polyester resin A having a repeating structural unit including a specific siloxane moiety and at least one of a polyester resin C having a specific structure and a polycarbonate resin D having a specific structure as a binder resin. The content of the siloxane moiety in the polyester resin A is from 5% by mass or more to 30% by mass or less based on the total mass of the polyester resin A. The charge transport layer includes a domain made of the polyester resin A in a matrix made of the charge transporting material and at least one of the polyester resin C and the polycarbonate resin D.

Electrophotographic photosensitive member, process cartridge, and electrophotographic apparatus

An electrophotographic photosensitive member having excellent cleaning performance, a process cartridge, and an electrophotographic apparatus. The peripheral surface of the member has flat portions having a width e (&#x3bc;m) satisfying 0.1&#x2266;e&#x2266;25 and a plurality of groove portions having a width w (&#x3bc;m) satisfying 0.1&#x2266;w&#x2266;25 and a depth d (&#x3bc;m) satisfying 0.1&#x2266;d&#x2266;3.0, the flat and groove portions at an angle &#x3b8; (&#xb0;) satisfying 80&#x2266;&#x3b8;&#x2266;100 with respect to the axial direction of the member. The sum e(&#x3bc;m) of the widths e of the flat portions per each width of&#x3bc;m in the axial direction of the peripheral surface satisfying 5&#x2266;e&#x2266;75, and e/esatisfying e/e&#x2266;0.46, where e(&#x3bc;m) is the average value of the widths e of the flat portions, and eis the standard deviation thereof.

An electrophotographic apparatus is provided including an electrophotographic photosensitive member which includes a surface protective layer; and an exposure device which irradiates a surface of the electrophotographic photosensitive member with an exposure beam so as to form an electrostatic latent image on the surface of the electrophotographic photosensitive member, wherein the surface protective layer includes a material having no structure to provide charge transporting performance and has a plurality of through holes penetrating from the side of the front surface of the surface protective layer to the side of the charge transport layer, and the thickness of the surface protective layer is from 0.1 &#x3bc;m or more to 1.5 &#x3bc;m or less, and wherein when the surface of the electrophotographic photosensitive member is irradiated with the exposure beam, two or more of the through holes are included in an exposure beam spot.

Electrophotographic apparatus

A method for producing a solid body having depressed portions on its surface is provided. The method includes: using a solution which includes a solvent A, a solvent B, a solvent C, and a polymer compound, where the solvent B is a hydrophobic solvent, the solvent A is a hydrophilic solvent having a boiling point not lower than the boiling point of the solvent B, and the solvent C is a non-hydrophobic solvent having a boiling point lower than the boiling point of the solvent B, and the contents of the solvent A, solvent B, and solvent C satisfy specific conditions; and solidifying the solution while forming depressed portions on the surface of the solution by condensation during the process of evaporating the solvents included in the solution.

Method of producing solid body having depressed portions on its surface and method of producing electrophotographic photosensitive member

A method of very inexpensively and stably producing a solid body having a depressed portion on a surface, which is expected to be applied in a variety of industrial fields. This method forms a solid body having a depressed portion on a surface by using a solution at least containing a solvent A, a solvent B and a polymer compound soluble in solvent B, solvent A being a hydrophilic solvent and solvent B being a hydrophobic solvent, the boiling point of solvent A being equal to or higher than the boiling point of solvent B, and the total mass of solvent B being 50% or more of the total mass of the solvents contained in the solution, then solidifying the solution while forming a depressed portion from condensation on the surface of the solution during a process wherein either one or both of the solvent A and solvent B contained in the solution are evaporating.

Method of producing solid body having depressed portion on surface

A charge transport layer serving as a surface layer of an electrophotographic photosensitive member contains a polyester resin having a repeating structural unit represented by the following formula (1) and a repeating structural unit represented by the following formula (2), as a binder resin; the content of a siloxane moiety of the polyester resin is not less than 5% by mass and not more than 30% by mass relative to the total mass of the polyester resin; and the content of the polyester resin in the charge transport layer is not less than 60% by mass relative to the total mass of the whole binder resin in the charge transport layer. 

Electrophotographic photosensitive member, process cartridge and electrophotographic apparatus

A charge transport layer serving as a surface layer of an electrophotographic photosensitive member contains a charge transporting material, polyester resin A containing a siloxane moiety and at least one of polyester resin C and polycarbonate resin D. The content of a siloxane moiety in polyester resin A is not less than 10% by mass and not more than 40% by mass relative to the total mass of polyester resin A. The charge transport layer has a matrix-domain structure having a matrix formed of the charge transporting material and at least one of polyester resin C and polycarbonate resin D and a domain formed of polyester resin A in the matrix.

Electrophotographic photosensitive member having siloxane-polyester, process cartridge and electrophotographic apparatus

An image forming method is disclosed having a charging step, an exposure step, a developing step and a transfer step. This method uses a toner which includes toner particles containing a binder resin and a colorant, and inorganic fine powder, and uses a photosensitive member which has on its surface depressed portions which are independent of one another. The depressed portions have openings having an average minor-axis diameter Lpc satisfying the relationship of Dg&#x3c;Lpc&#x3c;Dt (Dt represents the weight-average particle diameter of the toner, and Dg represents the maximum number-average particle diameter among number-average particle diameter(s) of one or two or more types of inorganic fine powder constituting the inorganic fine powder, and the toner has an average circularity of from 0.925 to 0.995.

Image forming method, and electrophotographic apparatus making use of the image forming method

An electrophotographic photosensitive member is disclosed which is excellent in cleaning performance, has improved durability, and suppresses image defects in various environments. The electrophotographic photosensitive member has a support and a photosensitive layer provided on the support. Depressed portions independent of one another are formed on the surface of the electrophotographic photosensitive member so that the number of the depressed portions per 100 &#x3bc;m square is 76 or more and 1,000 or less. The openings of the depressed portions have an average major axis diameter of more than 3.0 &#x3bc;m and 14.0 &#x3bc;m or less.

Electrophotographic photosensitive member with depressed portions, process cartridge holding the electrophotographic photosensitive member and electrophotographic apparatus with the electrophotographic photosensitive member

A method for preparing in high productivity and stably an electrophotographic photosensitive member having depressed portions on its surface, is provided. The method is characterized in that a coating liquid for a surface layer which includes a solvent including a hydrophilic solvent and a hydrophobic solvent and a polymer compound soluble in the hydrophobic solvent is used; the hydrophilic solvent has a boiling point equal to or higher than that of the hydrophobic solvent; the hydrophilic solvent has a dipole moment of 0 or more and less than 2.8, obtained by a structure optimized calculation using a semiempirical molecular orbital calculation; the total mass of the hydrophobic solvent is 50 mass % or more and less than 100 mass % of the total mass of the solvent included in the coating liquid for a surface layer; and after the coating liquid for a surface layer is applied, the depressed portions are formed by condensation on the surface on which the coating liquid for a surface layer is applied.

Method for preparing electrophotographic photosensitive member

A process for producing an electrophotographic photosensitive member, which has the step of bringing i) the surface of an electrophotographic photosensitive member having at least a charge transport layer on a cylindrical support and ii) a mold having a fine unevenness surface profile into pressure contact with each other to transfer the fine unevenness surface profile to the surface of the electrophotographic photosensitive member. The mold and the support are so temperature-controlled as to be T&#x3c;T&#x3c;Twhere the glass transition temperature of the charge transport layer is represented by T(&#xb0;C.), the temperature of the mold by T(&#xb0;C.), and the temperature of the support by T(&#xb0;C.).

Process for producing electrophotographic photosensitive member

An electrophotographic photosensitive member has a surface having a plurality of depressed portions, having a major-axis diameter Rpc of 0.1 to 10 &#x3bc;m, a minor-axis diameter Lpc of 0.1 to 10 &#x3bc;m and a deepest-part to opening distance Rdv of 0.1 to 10 &#x3bc;m. Where the surface is equally divided into 4 regions in the rotational direction, which are then equally divided into 25 regions in the direction falling at right angles with the rotational direction, to obtain 100-spot regions A in total, and, in each thereof, square regions B of 50 &#x3bc;m each per side one side of which is parallel to the rotational direction are provided and the regions B are each equally divided into 500 zones by straight lines parallel to the rotational direction, 400 to 499 lines among the straight lines pass through the depressed portions in each of the regions B.

An electrophotographic photosensitive member has, on the surface of its photosensitive layer, has a plurality of depressed portions which are independent from one another, and, where the major-axis diameter of each depressed portion is represented by Rpc and the depth that shows the distance between the deepest part of each depressed portion and the opening thereof is represented by Rdv, the depressed portions each have a ratio of depth to major-axis diameter, Rdv/Rpc, of from more than 1.0 to 7.0 or less.

A vibratory gyroscope including a vibrator () integrally having a plate-like body portion () spreading along a reference plane, three drive arms () extending in a first direction from the body portion along the reference plane, and two detection arms () extending in a second direction opposite to the first direction from the body portion along the reference plane. The three drive arms are composed of two exciting drive arms () that are excited in mutually opposite phases in the reference plane and a non-exciting drive arm () located between the two exciting drive arms. Each of the three drive arms has an arm width in a width direction along the reference plane and perpendicular to the first direction. Each of the two detection arms has an arm width greater than that of the drive arm in the width direction, thereby suppressing generation of vibrations along the reference plane.

Vibratory gyroscope

A cooling device includes a cooling panel wherein a passage is formed by bonding together a bottom heat radiation plate having a groove formed therein and a top heat radiation plate, and a circulation pump circulating refrigerant within the passage. The top heat radiation plate is provided with an outlet port through which the refrigerant flows out from the passage to the circulation pump and an inlet port through which the refrigerant flows in from the circulation pump to the passage. The circulation pump is fixed onto the top heat radiation plate of the cooling panel so that the suction port and discharge port are aligned with the outlet port and inlet port, respectively.

Cooling device for an electronic equipment

Growing community of inventors

Tokyo, Japan

Atsushi Ochi