Stanley Electric Co., Ltd

Fumiyuki Suda

Masaru Yasui

Shinichi Nomura

Hiroaki Hamanaka

Kazuhiro Miyamoto

Kazuhisa Kato

Atsushi Nagasaki

Norihiro Sakamoto

Yoichi Fukuda

The main material of related photoconductors is silicon. When toner is blown onto a photoconductor, spots of NO occur, which leads to occurrence of image blurring and image running, and image quality deteriorates substantially. In the present invention, there is provided a photoconductor for use in an electro-photographic photoconductor comprising a conductive substrate, a carrier blocking layer and a photosensitive layer, wherein a value for a polarized element of the most outer surface energy of the photoconductor is 2 &lsqb;mN/cm&rsqb; or less. The photoconductor can therefore be used without being heated to 35-45&deg; C., heating equipment is unnecessary, and image blurring and image running do not occur. The present invention also includes defining of the most outer surface energy of the photoconductor having a surface protection layer composed mainly of silicon on the photosensitive layer.

Photoconductor

A first object of the present invention is to provide a photosensor for use in an apparatus such as a copying machine, a printer etc. employing an electrophotographic technology which can prevent an image anomaly such as a blurring from generation even if it is exposed to a high-humidity ambient for a long period and subjected to multiple repetitions of numerous printing characters. A second object of the invention is to provide a photosensor for use in electrophotography which is excellent in surface abrasion durability, humidity resistivity etc. To satisfy the first purpose mentioned above, a photoconductive layer 2 formed of an amorphous layer including silicon atoms as a major element is deposited on a conductive substrate 1 formed of aluminium etc. A surface protective film 4 formed of another amorphous film including the silicon atoms as the main element, for instance, an a-SiC or an a-SiNC film is stacked on the layer 2 by adjusting a contact angle of the film 4 with de-ionized water measured in an open air ambient so as to be larger than about 76.degree.. To satisfy the second purpose mentioned above, another photosensitive layer 13 is grown via an adhesion enhancement layer 12 onto another conductive substrate 11, on an outside of which another surface protective film 16 including nitrogen and carbon atoms as well as the silicon atoms also as the major element is deposited.

Photosensor for use in electrophotography

A process for manufacturing a photoreceptor for electrophotography excellent in electrophotographic characteristics such as charging properties and sensitivity, which process comprises the steps of forming on a substrate, which comprises an electroconductive support or a support having an electroconductive film thereon, a thin film composed of a material selected from the group consisting of silicon dioxide and silicon oxides, containing predominantly SiO.sub.2, by deposition from the vapor phase to produce an under coat layer, and forming on said under coat layer a carrier generation layer and a carrier transport layer in this order.

Multi-layered photoreceptor for electrophotography

An amorphous silicon photoreceptor for electrophotography having a surface protective layer provided on top of an amorphous silicon photoreceptive layer and has a forbidden band width arranged to progressively increase as it goes from the surface of the photoreceptive layer toward the surface of the surface protective layer. A p type amorphous silicon layer may be provided between the amorphous silicon photoreceptive layer and the surface protective layer.

Photoreceptor for electrophotography

A substrate for an amorphous silicon photoreceptor prepared by first forming an amorphous silicon photoreceptive layer on an aluminum or aluminum alloy body by using a plasma CVD apparatus, and by arranging so that those crystal grains located in the surface of the substrate each has a diameter of 1 cm or smaller, to thereby make it possible to obtain a satisfactory image stably and repetitively.

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Yokohama, Japan

Fumiyuki Suda