Developing assembly, process cartridge and image-forming method

Abstract

A developing assembly is disclosed having at least a developer container, a developer-carrying member and a developer layer thickness regulation member, wherein the developer is composed mainly of toner particles containing at least a binder resin and a colorant, and conductive fine particles, and the developer-carrying member has a substrate and a surface layer formed on the substrate of a non-magnetic metal, an alloy or a metallic compound. This developing assembly causes no sleeve ghost, enables electrostatic latent images to be faithfully developed, causes no fading phenomenon, and enables high-density images to be formed in every environment. Also disclosed are a process cartridge having the developing assembly and the latent-image-bearing member integrally set as one unit detachably mountable on the main body of an image-forming apparatus, and an image-forming method making use of the features of this developing assembly.