JPH0270489A - Transfer recording medium and transfer recording method therefor - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To stably obtain an image of high quality by forming a developer layer for receiving sublimation dye on a base material, and forming a thermally fusible layer on the developer layer. CONSTITUTION:In a transfer recording medium 8 made by forming a developer layer 21 for receiving sublimation dye on a base material 20, a thermally fusible layer 22 is further provided on the layer 21 to prevent gradation generated by an air gap between the medium 8 and a recording medium 1 from deteriorating and the stability of an image from deteriorating. This is performed by transfer recoding in a step of forming a transfer image by selectively applying heat or light and heat to the medium 1 in which sublimation is varied by simultaneously applying heat or light and heat, and a step of transferring for heating the medium 8 provided with the layer 22 on the layer 21 for receiving the dye in pressure contact with the medium 1 to form the image on the medium 8.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Field of Industrial Application] The present invention relates to a transfer recording medium and a recording method related to dye thermal transfer recording in which an image is formed by transferring a sublimable dye onto a transfer medium using heat.

[Conventional technology]

Conventionally, a sublimable dye is used as a coloring agent, mixed with a binder that does not transfer to image-receiving paper due to heat, and coated on a base material such as polyester or paper to create a thermal transfer sheet (recording medium), which is a polyester resin that receives sublimable dyes. A dye thermal transfer method is used in which the sublimable dye is transferred to the image receiving paper by applying heat energy in a pattern from the back side of the thermal transfer sheet to obtain a full-color image. There is.

[Problem to be solved by the invention]

However, in order to obtain a high-quality full-color image using the above method, it is necessary to maintain the shape of the printing unit of the thermal head stably when heating with printing means such as a thermal head, and to maintain the shape of the printing unit between each printing unit and the same. Although it is required that the printing density be uniform under printing conditions, conventional techniques have not been able to sufficiently achieve this, and therefore it has been difficult to increase the recording speed.

The cause of these problems is a decrease in thermal conductivity and non-uniformity caused by the air gap between the thermal transfer sheet and the thermal transfer image-receiving paper. In order to achieve this, it is necessary that no air gap is created between the thermal transfer sheet and the thermal transfer image receiving paper during heating.

As a method to prevent air gaps from occurring, the surface of each of the thermal transfer sheet and thermal transfer image receiving paper is
The following methods of smoothing can be considered, but in order to achieve this level of smoothness, it is necessary to use a thermal transfer sheet after applying the ink.
Each thermal transfer image-receiving paper must be subjected to calender rolls or extrusion coated, and both have disadvantages of slow production speed and high cost, making them unsuitable for practical use. In view of the above points, the present invention provides a transfer recording medium and a recording method that can stably obtain high-quality images, and the present invention has also previously filed an application. A method of forming a transferred image by simultaneously applying light and thermal energy to change the transfer characteristics of a sublimable (vaporizable) dye and transferring it to a transfer medium (an improvement on Japanese Patent Application No. 1630651/1983) It is.

[Means for Solving the Problems 1] According to the present invention, in a transfer recording medium comprising a color developing layer that receives a sublimable dye formed on a base material, a heat-melting layer is further provided on the color developing layer. By providing this, it is possible to prevent deterioration of gradation, deterioration of image stability, etc. caused by an air gap between the transfer recording medium and the recording medium. This is a transfer image forming process in which heat or light and heat are selectively applied to a recording medium whose sublimability changes by applying heat or light and heat simultaneously. This can be achieved by a method of performing transfer recording by a transfer process in which a transfer recording medium provided with a layer and the recording medium are pressed and heated to form an image on the transfer recording medium. In the above method, the transfer image forming step and the transfer step may be performed simultaneously, or the transfer step may be performed after the transfer image forming step.

Hereinafter, the present invention will be explained in detail with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 shows a conceptual diagram of the transfer recording medium of the present invention, in which a dye-dyeable resin layer 21 is provided as a color developing layer on a base material 20;
and a thermally fused layer 22 are laminated.

Specific examples of the base material 20 include condenser paper, glassine paper, parchment paper, highly sized paper, and flexible thin-layer sheets such as plastic films. Among these, condenser paper and polyethylene terephthalate film are often used.Condenser paper is mainly used when heat resistance is important, and polyethylene terephthalate film is used when emphasis is placed on preventing breakage during handling with mechanical devices. Mainly used. The thickness of this base material 20 is usually 3 to 50 u.
m, preferably about 5 to 15 μm.

Further, the dye-dyeable resin layer 21 is a color developing layer having a function of receiving a sublimable dye, and the following materials are used.

(a) Those having ester bonds: polyester resins, polyacrylic acid ester resins, polycarbonate resins, polyvinyl acetate resins, styrene acrylate resins, vinyl toluene acrylate resins, etc.

(b) Things with urethane bonds: polyurethane resins, etc. (c) Things with urea bonds: urea resins, etc. (d) Other things with highly polar bonds: polycaprolactone resin, styrene-maleic anhydride resin, polyvinyl chloride. resin, polyacrylonitrile resin, etc.

In addition to the synthetic resins mentioned above, mixtures or copolymers thereof may also be used.

For the heat-melting layer 22, nonpolar substances such as waxes such as paraffin wax, ester wax, carnauba wax, and microcrystalline wax, and polyolefins such as oxidized polyethylene and polypropylene can be preferably used.

The total thickness of the dye-dyeable resin layer 21 and the heat-melting H22 is about 2 to 20 μm (2 to 20 g/rn'), of which the thickness of the heat-melting layer 22 is on average 1 to 10 μm (1 to 1
0g/nf). The heat-melting layer has the effect of making the surface smoothness of the color developing layer about 100 seconds or more regardless of the surface smoothness of the resin layer, and therefore, when the surface smoothness of the resin layer is low, etc. is formed relatively thick.

The heat-melting layer can be formed by a commonly used means such as an applicator or a percoater. In this case, a surfactant or the like may be added to the material for the heat-melting layer, if necessary, to form an emulsion and then applied. can be constructed.

The transfer recording medium with the above-mentioned structure has excellent surface smoothness, so it is possible to prevent air gaps from forming between the recording medium (thermal transfer sheet) and the sublimable dye of the recording medium is transferred. In the process, it becomes possible to transfer a desired image with good gradation to the developing layer of the transfer recording medium.

That is, the gradation is improved by a transfer image forming step of forming a desired image on a recording medium, and a transfer step of pressing and heating the transfer recording medium of the present invention and the thermal transfer sheet to transfer the image onto the transfer recording medium. This makes it possible to stably obtain high-quality images with excellent quality. Note that the transfer image forming step and the transfer step may be performed simultaneously, or the transfer step may be performed after the transfer image forming step.

The recording medium is a recording medium in which a dye transfer layer containing a sublimable dye whose sublimability changes by applying heat or light and heat simultaneously, which is known in the art, is formed on a base material,
As the sublimable dye, a sublimable disperse dye or the like can be used, and these can be formed as a paint together with a binder or the like, or microencapsulated with a photopolymerizable polymer or the like to form a dye transfer layer. The heat or light and heat applied to form the transferred image can be set appropriately depending on the sublimable dye used, and can be achieved by using a fluorescent lamp that emits light with a specific wavelength corresponding to the desired color, or a heating element array that generates heat according to the image signal. It can be implemented by etc.

Pressure heating when transferring an image onto a recording medium can be performed using a roller having a heating function, and pressure, temperature conditions, etc. may be appropriately set depending on the heat-fusible material used for the heat-fusible layer.

The transfer recording medium of the present invention is characterized in that a heat-melting layer is provided on the color developing layer, and as a sublimable dye, both materials whose sublimability changes with only heat or with light and heat can be used. Although it can be applied to either transfer recording method, it can be suitably used in the recording method using light and heat, which is more strongly affected by the air gap described above.

Next, an example of a recording apparatus for actually carrying out the recording method of the present invention for forming an image using light and heat described above is shown in FIG. 2 and will be described.

Reference numeral 1 denotes a recording medium containing a sublimable dye and a photothermal reaction composition, which is wound into a roll and is removably incorporated into the apparatus main body M as a supply roll 2. That is, this supply roll 2 is connected to a rotatable shaft 2 provided in the device main body M.
It is removably loaded into a. The recording medium 1 is fed out in the direction of the arrow a and is wound around the take-up roll 6 one after another.

The recording medium 1 fed out from the supply roll 2 first reaches the recording section 3 . The recording section 3 is composed of heating means and light irradiation means.

The heating means consists of a line-type heating element array 3b arranged on the surface of the recording head 3a, which generates heat according to the image signal.
The support side of the recording medium 1 is configured to come into contact with the heating element array 3b with a predetermined pressure due to the pack tension during conveyance. The image signal is generated from a control unit (not shown) of, for example, a facsimile, an image scanner, or an electronic whiteboard, depending on the purpose.

On the other hand, three fluorescent lamps 3c, 3d, and 3e serving as light irradiation means are arranged on the side of the recording layer facing the recording head 3a.

The fluorescent lamps 3c, 3d, and 3e each have a different wavelength λ1. λ
, , λC is irradiated.

Next, the transfer section 4 will be explained. The transfer section 4 is disposed downstream of the recording section 3 in the conveyance direction of the recording medium 1, and includes a transfer roller 4 that is driven and rotated in the direction of the arrow as shown in FIG.
The transfer roller 4a is made up of, for example, an aluminum roller whose surface is covered with silicone rubber, and whose surface is heated by a built-in heater 4C. Constructed to maintain heat.

The pressure roller 4b is made of, for example, an aluminum roller coated with silicone rubber, and is configured so that a pressing force is generated in the direction of the transfer roller 4a by a pressure means (not shown) such as a spring. The pressure roller 4b is effective when the image forming element is composed of microcapsules.

Further, the recording medium 8 of the present invention loaded in the cassette 7 has a feeding roller 9 and a pair of register rollers 10a.

10b, the recording medium 1 is fed to the transfer unit 4 in synchronization so as to overlap the area on which the recorded image is formed.

Now, the recording medium 1 is sequentially fed out from the supply roll 2, and a recorded image is formed by applying light and heat to the transfer recording layer 1b of the recording medium 1 in the recording section 3 according to the image signal. The recorded image formed in the recording unit 3 is transferred to a transfer medium 8 in a transfer unit 4. The transfer medium 8 on which the 0 image is formed is discharged to a discharge tray 11.

As explained above, the method of the present invention can be carried out using the apparatus having the configuration shown above.

〔Example] Example 1 A transfer recording medium was prepared in the following manner.

A developing layer ink having the following composition was applied onto synthetic paper (Oji Yuka Co., Ltd. Yubo FPG #150) using an applicator, and 120
It was dried at .degree. C. for 7 minutes to obtain a developing layer with a coating thickness of 6.0 g/rn'.

Developing layer ink Next, the following heat-melting layer ink was applied onto the developing layer using an applicator so that the dry film thickness was 1.5 g/rn', and dried at 55°C for 3 minutes. A transfer medium of Example 1 of the present invention was obtained.

On the other hand, a dye thermal transfer sheet (recording medium) was produced in the following manner.

A 1 g/rn' subbing layer made of polyurethane resin was provided on the opposite side of the back side of a 9 μm thick polyester film whose back side was treated with a heat-resistant coat, and furthermore, a dye-containing ink for M having the following composition was applied on top of that. Film thickness after drying is 1.5g
/m' with an applicator and dried at 70°C for 10 minutes.

The thermal head 3a was 8 dots/mm, a silicone rubber roll was used as the back platen 23, and the heating element of the thermal head was driven at 12V and 2.5 m/sec. Further, the surface temperature of the back platen 23 was 35° C., and the pressure was about 0.8 kgf/cm 2 .

Example 2 The components shown in Table 1 were mixed for base body Y, base body M, and base body C to form core materials of capsules, and microcapsules were formed.

The particle size of the three types of microcapsules is approximately 8 to 12μ.
was within the range. Equal amounts of these elements Y, M, and C were placed in a binder and uniformly dispersed. This was coated as a dye transfer layer on a heat-resistant PET film having a thickness of 3.5 .mu.m under light shielding to obtain a recording medium.

Next, transfer recording was performed using the obtained transfer recording medium and dye thermal transfer sheet using the recording apparatus shown in FIG. 3, and as a result, a clear image was obtained.

Table 1 The recording medium thus created was cut to a width of 210 IIm,
When the device was installed in a device similar to that shown in FIG. 2 and a recorded image was formed on a recording medium according to the sequence shown in FIG. 4, a clear recorded image was obtained. The medium used in Example 1 was used as the recording transfer medium. Also, the thermal head is 8 dot/n+m, and the peak wavelength of the light source is 313 nw.

: Three 40W fluorescent lamps of 160nm and 420n- were used. The transfer roller 4a used in the vaporization process has a surface temperature of 1
Maintained between 20 and 130℃, roller pressure 1.5kgf/
It was about "am".

[Effects of the Invention] As explained above, by providing the heat-melting layer on the color developing layer, it is possible to stably obtain high-quality images with excellent gradation. Furthermore, even in cases where the surface smoothness of the recording medium is poor, by using the transfer medium of the present invention, the heat-melting layer can fill the air gap during pressure heating.
Since the transfer of the sublimable dye to the transfer recording medium is promoted and thermal conductivity is also improved, high image quality can be effectively and easily achieved. Furthermore, according to the method of the present invention, it is also possible to improve the recording speed.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a schematic cross-sectional view showing the configuration of a transfer recording medium of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a configuration diagram showing an example of a recording apparatus for carrying out the recording method of the present invention, and FIG. A schematic configuration diagram of the recording apparatus used in Example 1, and FIG. 4 is a diagram showing the timing of image formation performed in Example 2 of the present invention. 1 Recording medium 2 Supply roll 2a Shaft
3 Recording section 3a Recording head 3b Heat generating elements 3C to 3e Fluorescent lamp 4 Transfer section 4a Transfer roller 4b Pressure roller 4c Heater 6 Take-up roll 7 Cassette
8 Transfer medium 9 Feeding rollers 10a, 10b Register roller pair 11 Ejection tray 20 Base material 21 Color developing layer
22 Heat melting layer 23 Back platen M
Device body patent applicant Canon Co., Ltd.

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] 1. A transfer recording medium comprising a color developer layer for receiving a sublimable dye formed on a base material, characterized in that a heat-melting layer is provided on the color developer layer. Transcription recording medium. 2. A transfer image forming process in which heat or light and heat are selectively applied to a recording medium whose sublimability changes by applying heat or light and heat at the same time, and heat is applied to the color developing layer that receives the sublimable dye. 1. A transfer recording method, characterized in that transfer recording is carried out by a transfer process in which a transfer recording medium provided with a fusion layer and the recording medium are pressed and heated to form an image on the transfer recording medium.