Star Micronics Company Limited

Yoshio Mitsumori

Tatsuo Fujinami

Kouichi Sasakura

Masami Iwayama

An image forming apparatus comprises: an image forming body comprising a substrate and a self-assembling compound adsorbed to a surface of the substrate to form a self-assembling monomolecular film; a first desorbing device for selectively desorbing at least a part of the self-assembling compound forming the self-assembling monomolecular film from the surface of the image forming body, so as to provide the surface of the image forming body with a desorbed face and an undesorbed face which have wettabilities different from each other; a developing device for supplying the surface of the image forming body with ink which preferentially attaches to one of the desorbed face or undesorbed face; and a transfer device for transferring to a recording medium the ink attached to the surface of the image forming body. In this apparatus, a printing plate can easily be formed and erased, and the same printing plate can be used repeatedly. Therefore, higher-speed printing, smaller dimensions in the apparatus, lower running cost at the time of copy-printing a small number of sheets can be realized, while making it possible to achieve higher resolution.

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Shizuoka, Japan

Yoshio Mitsumori