Ricoh Company, Ltd.

Semiconductor Energy Laboratory Co., Ltd.

Narihito Kojima

Hiroshi Nagame

Yohta Sakon

Hiroshi Ikuno

Ryuta Takeichi

Hidetoshi Kami

Akiyo Nakajima

Hiroshi Tamura

Tetsuro Suzuki

Tatsuya Niimi

Shunpei Yamazaki

Shigenori Hayashi

Eiji Kurimoto

Naohiro Toda

Yukio Ide

Maiko Kondo

Yoshiaki Kawasaki

Katsuichi Ohta

Takashi Rokutanzono

Ryoichi Kitajima

Akiyo Namiki

Nozomu Tamoto

Akihiko Matsuyama

Yukiko Iwasaki

Hiroyuki Fushimi

Mitsuru Seto

Ryohichi Kitajima

Yuka Miyamoto

Shinji Nousho

Katsuyuki Yamada

Akio Kosuge

Makoto Harigaya

Hiroko Iwasaki

Naoki Hirose

Jun Aoto

Toshiyuki Kawanishi

Eiichi Kawamura

Masao Yoshikawa

Masato Igarashi

Kohichi Ohshima

Noriya Ishida

Junichi Takeyama

Minoru Umeda

Mari Sasaki

Satoshi Otomura

Kouichi Ohshima

Shinji Nosho

An image forming method, includes: forming a latent electrostatic image on a latent electrostatic image carrier; developing the latent electrostatic image with a toner to thereby form a visible image; transferring the visible image to a recording medium; and fixing the image transferred to the recording medium. The latent electrostatic image carrier includes: a support, a photoconductive layer on the support, and a surface protective layer on the support. The surface protective layer includes a reactant made by cross-linking the following: an electric charge transporting material which comprises a reactive functional group, a cross-linking resin, and a fluorine surfactant. The toner comprises an inorganic fine particle which defines an effective inorganic fine particle amount in a range of 0.8% by mass to 3.0% by mass calculated from the following equation (1): 

Toner, developer, toner container and latent electrostatic image carrier, and process cartridge, image forming method, and image forming apparatus using the same

An image forming method, includes: forming a latent electrostatic image on a latent electrostatic image carrier; developing the latent electrostatic image with a toner to thereby form a visible image; transferring the visible image to a recording medium; and fixing the image transferred to the recording medium. The latent electrostatic image carrier includes: a support, a photoconductive layer on the support, and a surface protective layer on the support. The surface protective layer includes a reactant made by cross-linking the following: an electric charge transporting material which comprises a reactive functional group, a cross-linking resin, and a fluorine surfactant. The toner comprises an inorganic fine particle which defines an effective inorganic fine particle amount in a range of 0.8% by mass to 3.0% by mass calculated from the following equation (1): where SF-2 denotes a shape factor of the toner.

An electrophotographic photoconductor includes an electroconductive substrate, a photoconductive layer arranged over the electroconductive layer with or without the interposition of an undercoat layer, and a surface top layer containing a crosslinkable resin arranged over the photoconductive layer, the photoconductive layer includes a charge generation layer containing a charge generating material, and a charge transport layer containing a charge transporting material, in which the surface top layer is substantially free from hydroxyl groups and residual uncured portions.

Electrophotographic photoconductor, preparation method thereof, electrophotographic apparatus and process cartridge

An electrophotographic photoreceptor including a photosensitive layer on an electroconductive substrate, wherein nitrate ion is present on the surface of the photosensitive layer in an amount of from 50 to 300 &#x3bc;g per 1 mof the surface of the photosensitive layer when the nitrate ion is determined by an ion chromatographic method. Preferably a material having a fluorine atom and a carbon atom or a fatty acid metal salt such as zinc stearate is further present on the surface of the photosensitive layer such that the F/C ratio is from 0.05 to 0.5 or the Zn/C ratio is from 0.001 to 0.1. An image forming apparatus using the photoreceptor is also provided.

Electrophotographic photoreceptor and image forming apparatus using the photoreceptor

An electrophotographic photoreceptor including an electroconductive substrate; a photosensitive layer located overlying the electroconductive substrate and including a resin; and a surface layer including a filler and a binder resin, wherein the surface layer and the photosensitive layer have a continuous structure, and wherein the surface layer satisfies the following relationship: &#x3c3;&#x2266;D/5, wherein D represents an average of maximum thicknesses of the surface layer in units of micrometers in 20 segments of 5 &#x3bc;m wide when a portion of a cross section of the photoreceptor of 100 &#x3bc;m wide is divided into the 20 segments, and &#x3c3; represents a standard deviation of the 20 maximum thicknesses.

Electrophotographic photoreceptor, method for manufacturing the photoreceptor, and image forming method and apparatus using the photoreceptor

An electrophotographic drum-shaped photoconductor has an electroconductive support and a photoconductive layer formed thereon, with a lubricating material being applied to the surface thereof in the shape of a plurality of bands spaced therebetween, constituting band-shaped lubricating material applied areas, extending along a circumference of the drum-shaped photoconductor in the direction perpendicular or substantially perpendicular to an axis of rotation of the drum-shaped photoconductor. An electrophotographic image formation method and an image forming apparatus employing the above-mentioned drum-shaped photoconductor are also disclosed.

Electrophotographic drum-shaped photoconductor and image forming method and apparatus using the same

An image forming apparatus including a photoreceptor configured to bear an electrostatic latent image while rotating in a direction, wherein the photoreceptor includes an electroconductive substrate, a photosensitive layer located overlying the substrate, and a protective layer located overlying the photosensitive layer and including a filler; a latent image former configured to form the electrostatic latent image on the photoreceptor; an image developer configured to develop the electrostatic latent image with a developer including a toner; an image transfer device configured to transfer the toner image onto a receiving material; a cleaner configured to remove the toner remaining on the surface of the photoreceptor while contacting the surface of the photoreceptor; and a surface condition controller configured to control a surface condition of the photoreceptor.

Electrophotographic image forming method and apparatus

An electrophotographic photoreceptor including an electroconductive substrate; a photosensitive layer located overlying the electroconductive substrate and including a resin; and a surface layer including a filler and a binder resin, wherein the surface layer and the photosensitive layer have a continuous structure, and wherein the surface layer satisfies the following relationship: &sgr;&lE;D/5, wherein D represents an average of maximum thicknesses of the surface layer in units of micrometers in 20 segments of 5 &mgr;m wide when a portion of a cross section of the photoreceptor of 100 &mgr;m wide is divided into the 20 segments, and &sgr; represents a standard deviation of the 20 maximum thicknesses.

An electrophotographic photoreceptor including at least an electroconductive substrate; and a photosensitive layer overlying the electroconductive substrate and including at least a charge generation layer; a charge transport layer; and a protective layer including a filler, wherein the filler is dispersed in the protective layer so as to occupy an area of from 3 to 5% of a cross section of the protective layer; the filler has particle diameter distribution having a peak at a diameter of from 0.2 to 0.3 &mgr;m; and the particles of the filler having a particle diameter of not less than 0.3 &mgr;m occupies an area of from 10 to 30% of the area of all the filler in the cross section of the protective layer.

Multilayer electrophotographic photoreceptor, and image forming method, image forming apparatus and process cartridge using the photoreceptor

An electrophotographic photoreceptor including a photosensitive layer on an electroconductive substrate, wherein nitrate ion is present on the surface of the photosensitive layer in an amount of from 50 to 300 &mgr;g per 1 m of the surface of the photosensitive layer when the nitrate ion is determined by an ion chromatographic method. Preferably a material having a fluorine atom and a carbon atom or a fatty acid metal salt such as zinc stearate is further present on the surface of the photosensitive layer such that the F/C ratio is from 0.05 to 0.5 or the Zn/C ratio is from 0.001 to 0.1. An image forming apparatus using the photoreceptor is also provided.

An electrophotographic photoreceptor including an electroconductive substrate and a photoreceptive layer, which is formed overlying the substrate, wherein the photoreceptive layer includes a charge carrier generation layer including a charge carrier generation material and a charge carrier transport layer including a charge carrier transport material, and wherein when an electric field of from 2.5&times;10 V/cm to 5.5&times;10 V/cm is applied to the charge carrier transport layer, the relationship, t /&mgr; &lE;1.5&times;10 V&middot;s/m, is satisfied, wherein t represents a thickness of the charge carrier transport layer and &mgr; represents a charge mobility of the charge carrier transport layer.

Electrophotographic photoreceptor and electrophotographic image forming method and apparatus using the photoreceptor

Electrophotographic photoreceptor and image forming method and apparatus using the photoreceptor

A lubricity-imparting unit for imparting lubricity to a surface of an electrophotographic photoconductor, which is in contact with the surface of the photoconductor, wherein at least a surface of the lubricity-imparting unit which comes into contact with the surface of the photoconductor includes a flexible lubricating material, and has a length at least capable of covering an image formation region of the electrophotographic photoconductor lengthwise. An image formation apparatus and an image formation method using this lubricity-imparting unit are described.

Unit for imparting lubricity to electrophotographic photoconductor, electrophotographic image formation apparatus including the unit, and image formation method using the apparatus

An electrophotographic photoreceptor which includes an electroconductive substrate, and a photosensitive layer which is formed overlying the substrate, wherein the photosensitive layer includes a charge generation material, a charge transport polymer material including triarylamine structure and a soft segment in a main chain thereof, and a filler.

Electrophotographic photoreceptor, and process cartridge and image forming apparatus using the photoreceptor

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Numazu, Japan

Narihito Kojima