Abstract
The development process of liquid toner to reproduce 2540dpi single-dot images was investigated using numerical simulations taking account of the motion of both toner particles and counter ions. The simulation shows that, at an early stage of the development, the toner particles are developed around the edge of the latent image on the photoreceptor, and then the particles are accumulated to form a single dot with horizontal migration toward the center of the latent image. Such developing behavior is characteristic of liquid toner, and the result suggests the mechanism of the high reproducibility of liquid development. In addition, the development-bias dependence of dot diameters agrees well with the experimental results and the validity of the model was confirmed. Moreover, the capability of high-resolution multi-line pattern formation was investigated by theoretical analysis using the same model as that for the single-dot analysis. As a result, a phenomenon peculiar to the multi-line pattern was found and the guideline to the higherresolution image was obtained. Thus,the superiority of the liquid toner process that can reproduce a singledot whose diameter is less than 10 μm and a multi-line image consisting of lines of 10 μm wide was clarified by both the theoretical and the experimental analyses.
