Stanley Electric Co., Ltd

Hiroaki Hamanaka

Fumiyuki Suda

Shinichi Nomura

Norihiro Sakamoto

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.

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Hiratsuka, Japan

Hiroaki Hamanaka