High-resolution Measurement of the Electrostatic Latent Image on Photoconductor

Abstract

A new instrument which can measure latent images on the photoconductor drum installed in a xerographic printer is developed. In this instrument a gap between a measuring electrode and a photoconductor drum can be held at approximately 30 μm and electric sparks in the narrow gap can be prevented with the use of bias voltage or SF₆ gas. This instrument has a spatial resolution of as high as 10 lines/mm. It becomes possible to observe changes in latent images on organic photoconductors due to fatigue and image blurring phenomena on amorphous Si photoconductors. From these observations it is found that the edge widths of latent image spread by the fatigue or the image blurring phenomena.