JPH0219791B2 - - Google Patents

Description

[Detailed description of the invention]

INDUSTRIAL APPLICATION FIELD The present invention relates to a novel image forming element and image forming method for forming images using electrical signals, which are used in printing devices such as facsimiles and printers. Conventional technology Recording methods conventionally used in printing and recording devices such as facsimiles and printers include thermal recording methods and electrophotographic methods.
A method of recording an image by applying a pulse voltage input signal to the thermal head while the thermal recording paper and the thermal head are in close contact, heating the resistor inside the thermal head, and using the heat to color the thermal recording paper and record an image. be. This method is characterized in that there is almost no wear on the thermal head, the apparatus is easy to maintain, and since it utilizes the primary color development of the thermal recording paper, there is no need for development or fixing. However, on the other hand, it requires specially processed recording paper, which reduces paper cost, writing performance, and
It is inferior to plain paper recording in terms of operability, etc. On the other hand, in the electrophotographic method, an electrical signal containing image information is converted into an image signal of optical energy such as laser output, and the image signal is exposed onto a uniformly charged electrophotographic photoreceptor to form an electrostatic latent image. The image is then developed, transferred, and fixed using colored toner to obtain an image on plain paper. This method has an advantage over thermal recording methods in that plain paper can be used as the recording paper. However, the image signal system using optical energy used in this system is generally more expensive than the image signal system using a thermal head, and has the disadvantage of being larger. Purpose of the Invention The present invention provides a novel image forming method that eliminates the drawbacks of the conventional image forming recording method, does not require corona charging, enables recording on plain paper, and enables compact and inexpensive electrical signal recording. The object of the present invention is to provide an element and an image forming method. That is, according to the present invention, an insulating support, a first electrode group having a plurality of striped electrodes on the insulating support, and a first electrode group on the first electrode group side of the insulating support. a second electrode group having a plurality of striped electrodes in the resistance layer so as to three-dimensionally intersect with the electrodes of the first electrode group without contacting the electrodes; an isolated layer on the surface of the layer opposite to the insulating support, located above each three-dimensional intersection of the striped electrodes of the first and second electrode groups and having a larger area than the three-dimensional intersection; An image forming element is provided, which includes a conductor and an insulating layer covering the isolated conductor, and in which the second electrode group is provided at a position closer to the isolated conductor than the first electrode group. Further, according to the present invention, a voltage is applied to the first electrode group and the second electrode group of the image forming element configured as described above in accordance with image information, and the first
Development in which a potential image is formed on the isolated conductor on the intersection of the electrode group and the second electrode group, and a bias voltage is applied while the voltage is applied to the first electrode group and the second electrode group. An image forming method is proposed which is characterized by developing a potential image with an insulating toner on a roll. As described above, depending on whether or not a voltage is applied between the three-dimensionally intersecting electrodes, a potential image is created due to the difference in potential of an isolated conductor corresponding to the difference in the voltage distributed by the resistance layer between the three-dimensionally intersecting electrodes. can be formed on the surface of the image forming element. Then, this potential image is visualized by a developing process that is performed simultaneously with applying a voltage between the crossed electrodes. EXAMPLES The present invention will be described in detail below based on the drawings.
The typical configuration of the image forming device according to the present invention is described in the first section.
As shown in the figure. The image forming element 1 has an insulating support 2
, a first electrode group 3 having a plurality of striped electrodes 3a on the insulating support, and a resistance layer 5 on the surface of the insulating support 2 on the first electrode group 3 side.
and a second electrode group 4 having a plurality of striped electrodes 4a in the resistance layer 5 so as to three-dimensionally intersect with the electrodes 3a of the first electrode group 3 without contacting them.
and on the surface of the resistance layer 5 opposite to the insulating support.
Striped electrodes 3 of the first and second electrode groups 3 and 4
Isolated conductor 6 that is located above each of the three-dimensional intersections a and 4a and has a larger area than the three-dimensional intersections.
and an insulating layer 7 covering the isolated conductor. The insulating support 2 has a higher resistance than the resistance layer 5. Specifically, it is formed of glass, resin film, or the like. Then, on such an insulating support 2, an electrode 3a is formed. Electrode 3a can be formed by various methods. Typical manufacturing methods include vapor deposition or sputtering and etching using photoresist. According to this method, after the electrode material is deposited on the surface of the support, a striped electrode masking pattern is formed using a photoresist, and then the deposited electrode material layer is selectively etched using a predetermined etching solution. After removal, the photoresist masking pattern is removed to create striped electrodes. Electrode materials include Al, Ag, Pb, Zn, Ni, Au,
Various metals such as Cr, Mo, In, Nb, Ta, U, Ti, and Pt, and metal oxides such as In ₂ O ₃ and SnO ₂ can be used. Another method for forming the electrode 3 is to deposit the electrode material onto the insulating support through a mask having openings in the form of striped electrodes. The thickness of the electrode 3 is approximately 100 Å to 1 μ. After electrode 3a is formed, electrode 4a and resistance layer 5 are formed. Since the electrode 4a is surrounded by the resistive layer 5, in order to form the electrode 4a and the resistive layer 5, first a part of the resistive layer 5 is formed, then the electrode 4 is formed, and then the resistive layer is formed again. 5 can be used. The same material and forming method as the electrode 3a can be used for the electrode 4a. The electrode 4a crosses the electrode 3a three-dimensionally without contacting it. Figure 2 shows the state of the intersection. The resistance layer 5 is made of polyester resin, acrylic resin, silicone resin, alkyd resin, epoxy resin, urethane resin, butadiene-styrene resin,
It is formed by mixing a binder such as an imide resin or a silicone-butadiene resin with a conductive fine powder such as carbon black or tin oxide together with a solvent, and applying and drying the dispersed coating liquid using a dispersing means such as a ball mill disperser. The amount of conductive fine powder added is several percent to several tens of percent by weight in terms of solid content. Then, an isolated conductor 6 is formed on the resistance layer 5. The isolated conductor 6 is the electrode 3a or the electrode 4a
is formed in a similar manner. The isolated conductor 6 is a discontinuous island conductor, and becomes a pixel of an image to be formed. Examples of the shape of the isolated electrode are shown in FIGS. 3 and 4, but the shape is not limited to these shapes, and other shapes may be used. Thereafter, an insulating layer 7 is formed on the isolated conductor 6. The material for this layer is electrically insulating and may be any known resin such as polyester, polycarbonate, polyurethane, polystyrene, or the like. A method of forming a potential image using the image forming element described above will be explained with reference to FIGS. 5 to 7. As shown in FIGS. 5 and 6, each electrode 3a of the first electrode group 3 is connected to a first power source 10 via a first scanning section 8. As shown in FIG. Each electrode 4a of electrode group 4
is connected to a second power source 11 via a second scanning section 9. The first scanning unit 8 scans and selects one of the first electrode groups 3 and selects the first power source 1.
A voltage V ₃ is applied from 0 to 0. Further, one of the second electrode groups 4 is scanned and selected by the second scanning section 9, and a voltage V ₄ is applied from the second power source 11.
FIG. 7 shows an equivalent circuit at the intersection of electrode 3a and electrode 4a. Here, if the resistance between the isolated conductor 6 and the electrode 4a is _R1 , the resistance between the isolated conductor 6 and the electrode 3a is _R2 , and the resistance between the electrode 3a and the electrode 4a is _R3 , then the isolated conductor The voltage V ₀ of the body 6 is expressed by the following equation. V ₀ = R ₁ /R ₁ +R ₂ V ₃ +R ₂ /R ₁ +R ₂ V ₄ Therefore, the voltage applied to electrodes 3a and 4a V ₃
By appropriately selecting and V ₄ , the potential V ₀ of the isolated conductor 6 corresponding to the intersection of that portion is determined. _V3 and _V4
If each of the following two points is selected, the potential V ₀ of each isolated conductor will be as shown in Table-1.

[Table] V ₃ = one electrode selected by the scanning unit 10
When Va (R ₁ + R ₂ )/R _{1 and} V ₄ =Va (R ₁ + R ₂ )/R ₂ are applied to one electrode selected by the scanning unit 11, and all other electrodes are set to 0V, the image The potential of the isolated conductor 6 of the forming element is 2Va at the intersection of the selected electrodes, Va at the area where voltage is applied only to one electrode other than the intersection of the selected electrodes,
In other parts, it becomes 0, and a potential image is formed. To develop such a potential image, as shown in FIG. 5, the surface of the insulating layer 7 of the image forming element is rubbed with a developer 13 such as an insulating toner held by a developing roller 12. As a result, the toner 14 adheres to the portion where the potential image is formed. Development must be performed while the potential image is being formed. In practice, a voltage is selectively applied to the electrodes in the developing nip. Therefore, it is necessary to scan the electrodes in synchronization with the movement of the image forming element. Electrode group 3
The input image information is transferred onto the image forming element by controlling the voltage applied to the electrode groups 3 and 4 in the developing nip based on the time-series signal of the image information input corresponding to the scans of 4 and 4. can be reproduced. The potential image formed in this way is obtained by applying the voltage to the bias power supply 1 while maintaining the voltage application to the first electrode group and the second electrode group.
Developing roll 12 to which a bias voltage is applied by 5
It can be developed with the above toner. By using an insulating toner as the toner, the toner can be attached only to selected electrode intersections. The toner may be used with a carrier.
Also, if the bias voltage is set to a voltage between the voltage of the potential image and the higher voltage of the voltage applied to the first electrode group or the second electrode group, for example, a voltage between 2Va and Va, fogging can be prevented. No good images are obtained. The developed toner image is transferred and fixed onto a transfer paper, and the image forming element can be cleaned and reused. Next, a specific example will be explained. Example: Depositing Al on a glass substrate through a mask,
Striped electrodes 3a having a pitch of 250μ and a width of 90μ were formed. Next, a mixed solution of 90 parts by weight of polyester resin, 10 parts by weight of carbon black, and tetrahydrofuran was dispersed in a ball mill, and then a paint was applied to the electrode face plate of the glass substrate, dried, and then dried.
A 10μ coating film was formed to serve as a resistance layer. Al was deposited on this resistance layer through a mask, and the pitch was 250μ and the width was 30μ.
A striped electrode 4a was formed. This striped electrode was arranged to be substantially orthogonal to the electrode 3a already formed on the glass substrate. Second
The striped electrode 4a is coated with the same paint as the resistance layer, dried, and further provided with a resistance layer of about 5 μm.
The total thickness of the resistance layer was 15μ. Al was evaporated onto this through a mask to form an isolated conductor with a vertical and horizontal width of 225 μm and an interval of 25 μm.
In FIGS. 2 and 4, the size of each electrode of the image forming element manufactured by the above method had approximately the following values. a=30μ, b=220μ, c=
90μ, d=160μ, e=f=255μ, g=h=25μ. The resistance R ₁ between the isolated conductor and the electrode 4 at the intersection of the electrode 3 a and the electrode 4 a of the image forming element was approximately the same as the resistance R ₂ between the isolated conductor 3 . Scanning each electrode group of the above image forming element,
In accordance with the image information, a voltage of 200 V was applied and development was performed at the same time. A developer consisting of a conductive magnetic powder carrier and an insulating toner was used, and a bias voltage of 100 V was applied to the developing roller to perform development. Through the above steps, a toner image corresponding to the image information was formed on the image forming element. This toner image is transferred to transfer paper by corotron transfer using a conventionally well-known method.
The image forming element could be used repeatedly after cleaning. Effects of the Invention As is clear from the above, if an image is formed according to the present invention using the image forming element according to the present invention, it is possible to record on plain paper by an electrophotographic method without using corona charging. It is also possible to record electrical signals in a small and inexpensive manner.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a schematic cross-sectional view showing the basic configuration of an image forming element according to the present invention. FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram showing the electrodes of the image forming element of the present invention. FIGS. 3 and 4 are examples of shapes of isolated conductors of the image forming element of the present invention. FIGS. 5 and 6 are explanatory diagrams of an image forming method using the image forming element of the present invention. FIG. 7 is an equivalent circuit diagram of FIG. 5. 1... Image forming element, 2... Insulating support, 3
a, 4a... Striped electrode, 5... Resistance layer,
6...Isolated conductor, 7...Insulating layer, 8, 9...
Scanning unit, 10, 11...Power supply, 12...Developing roller, 13...Developer, 14...Toner, 15...
Bias power supply.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. An insulating support, a first electrode group having a plurality of striped electrodes on the insulating support,
A resistive layer on the surface of the first electrode group of the insulating support, and a plurality of stripes in the resistive layer so as to three-dimensionally intersect with the electrodes of the first electrode group without contacting them. a second electrode group having shaped electrodes; and an insulating layer covering the isolated conductor, the second electrode group being closer to the isolated conductor than the first electrode group. An image forming element provided at a position. 2. an insulating support and a first electrode group having a plurality of striped electrodes on the insulating support;
A resistive layer on the surface of the first electrode group of the insulating support, and a plurality of stripes in the resistive layer so as to three-dimensionally intersect with the electrodes of the first electrode group without contacting them. a second electrode group having shaped electrodes; and an insulating layer covering the isolated conductor, the second electrode group being closer to the isolated conductor than the first electrode group. preparing an image forming element provided at a position; applying a voltage to a first electrode group and a second electrode group of the image forming element in accordance with image information;
Development in which a potential image is formed on the isolated conductor on the intersection of the electrode group and the second electrode group, and a bias voltage is applied while the voltage is applied to the first electrode group and the second electrode group. An image forming method characterized by developing a potential image with an insulating toner on a roll. 3. The image forming method according to item 2, wherein the bias voltage is a voltage between the voltage of the potential image and a voltage higher in absolute value among the voltages applied to the first electrode group or the second electrode group. .