This paper describes high-voltage and plasma applications in agriculture, fishery, and food processing. Repetitively operated, compact, pulsed-power generators with a moderate peak power were developed for application in various stages of agriculture and food processing. A high-voltage pulse produces an intense high-electric field that can cause biological effects such as a stress response (stimulation) or electroporation. Other types of pulsed power that have biological effects can be caused using gas and water discharges that include reactive species such as reactive oxygen species (ROS) and reactive nitrogen species (RNS). A repetitive, pulsed discharge was used to promotethe growth of vegetables and fruits. The growth rate of the vegetables and the sugar content in strawberries harvested after cultivation increased due to the plasma irradiation of the hydroponic solution. The leaf sizes of the plants increased with the plasma treatment time. The number of colony-forming units (CFU) of R. solanacearum in the liquid fertilizer decreased from 107 to 102 CFU/mL using the plasma treatment. Seedlings that underwent the plasma treatment were relatively healthy; in contrast, all seedlings in the positive control wilted and died from infection by R. solanacearum. The yield rate of shiitake mushrooms (L. edodes) was improved by high-voltage stimulation in the fruiting-body formation phase. The AC high-voltage treatmentcan ensure the freshness of agricultural produce for a relatively longer time-period. The electrostatic effects can contribute to the removal of airborne bacteria and fungal spores from storage houses and containers,thus reducing the risk of infection fromfungi and bacteria. These applications can therefore contribute positively to the global food supply chain.

We developed a plasma-assisted deposition (PAD) method to produce a gallium-doped zinc oxide (GZO) transparent conductive film that can replace conventional indium tin oxide (ITO) transparent conductive film.The GZO can be produced at a low cost by using abundant resources and inexpensive zinc as the main raw material and without using expensive rare metals. The PAD film-forming method is characterized by a low-temperature process and the absence of ions in the film-forming chamber, therefore enabling easyfilm-formation on a plastic substrate. This method realizes a productivity cost of 10% or less than that of ITO transparent conductive film and enables a soft film-formation that resists damage even when the film is formed on a device. The vertical roll-to-roll deposition system developed as the GZO deposition system is space-saving, realizes excellent maintainability, and can be applied invarious deposition systems.

Wet coating is a film manufacturing method in which a coating solution is applied to a wide and long substrate and is dried to produce a target functional layer. The coating solution contains water and organic solvent systems, but is difficult to apply due to the high surface tension of the water system in the coating solution.Therefore, various measures are necessary for the production of non-defective products. The functional layer can consist of a single layer up to a dozen or more layers, such as those found in photographic light-sensitive materials. Further, the coating speed is approximately 20 to 500 m/min for plastic substrates and can achieve a high speed of approximately 1000 m/min for paper substrates. The following paper outlines the features of the single-layer and multilayer coating methods.

In this article, we attempt to provide a brief guide to the recent progress in experimental techniques to monitor the transient drying process of multicomponent thin liquid film coatings. First, we report simultaneous measurements of the heat-fluxes and masses of coatings, which allow us to determine the drying rates of two different solvents as a function of the drying time. Second, we demonstrate that, in drying suspensions that contain particles of varying sizes, the photo-luminescence measurement in the course of drying is a powerful tool for capturing the migration of small particles to the top surface. However, the depth-concentration profiles of the particles are not directly determined by this technique. As an alternative tool to capture the concentration distributions in a drying coating, we introduce confocal Raman spectroscopy and reportits recent application in phase-separating polymeric coatings by utilizing a novel solvent-replacement technique. Finally, we reporton a cantilever beam-deflection technique to measure the stress developments in a drying coating. A combination of these techniques may provide a new horizon toward a fundamental understanding of the microstructural development of drying multicomponent films.

Beam-splitting laser scanning systems can halve the required number of light sources and lead to low-cost and space-saving color electrophotographic apparatus. However, the presence of ghost lights can result in imaging errors in the system. There are two methods for preventing ghost lights. One method is to shift the timing of the ghost light from the image region. Another method is to remove the ghost light using optical elements. We analyzed the exposure timings of full-color organic photoconductors (OPCs) and clarified a condition in which the ghost light is suppressed theoretically. To satisfy the condition, it is necessary to slow the print speed and increase the size of the laser scanning system. Therefore, we devised an optical system to remove the ghost light and realize a beam-splitting laser scanning system without slowing the print speed and increasing the system size. By utilizing this new system and 40-ch (40-channel) vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) arrays, we delivered high-speed, high-resolution, low-cost, and compact color multi-function printers (MFPs).