JPH06161137A - Manufacture of electrophotographic selenium photosensitive body - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To provide a method of stably manufacturing a selenium laminated photosensitive body with little surface defect. CONSTITUTION:Positive hole injection layer evaporation material 4, charge generating layer evaporation material 5 and surface protecting layer evaporation material 6 of a granular selenium group of 1.0mum-1.7mum in grain diameter are placed on a rotary belt 1, in a charge pattern shown by dotted lines. The rotary belt 1 is rotatory-driven in the direction of an arrow mark A to feed each evaporation material successively to evaporation source 3, preheated to high temperature, for flash evaporation. A positive hole injection layer, a charge generating layer and a surface protecting layer are thereby formed successively on a charge transport layer formed on a base body by normal resistance heating system vacuum evaporation.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a method for producing a function-separated selenium laminated photoreceptor for electrophotography.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art A selenium photoreceptor, which has been widely used as an electrophotographic photoreceptor, is formed by vacuum-depositing a selenium-based material on the outer surface of a cylindrical substrate made of a conductive material such as an aluminum alloy. It is manufactured by Conventionally, the selenium photoconductor was a single-layer type photoconductor in which a selenium-based material was vapor-deposited in one layer to form a photoconductor layer. However, in recent years, there has been a strong demand for high sensitivity and high durability. Due to the diversification of applied devices, a photosensitive member having a high sensitivity to light of a specific wavelength has been required, and a laminated photosensitive member in which a photosensitive member layer is a multilayer film having functionally separated layers has been developed and put into practical use. For example, a photoconductor used in a semiconductor laser printer, which has been rapidly spread in recent years, is a semiconductor laser beam having a long wavelength (wavelength 780).
nm) is required to have high sensitivity and high durability. In order to satisfy this requirement, pure Se or low Te on the substrate 11 is provided as shown in the schematic sectional view of FIG. 2, for example.
Concentration Se / Te alloy charge transport layer 12, 5 wt% to 25 wt% Te concentration Se / Te alloy hole injection layer 13, high Te concentration Se / Te alloy charge generation layer 14, It is a laminated photoreceptor in which the surface protective layer 15 made of pure Se, Se / Te alloy, Se / As alloy or the like is sequentially laminated. From the viewpoint of function, the thickness of each layer is several tens of microns for the charge transport layer, several microns or less for the hole injection layer, and submicron order for the charge generation layer.
The surface protective layer is on the order of a few microns. In manufacturing such a laminated selenium photoreceptor, the charge transport layer having a relatively thick film can be favorably formed by an ordinary resistance heating evaporation method in which the evaporation material filled in the evaporation source is heated and evaporated in a vacuum. However, it is difficult to form the thin film hole injection layer, charge generation layer, and surface protection layer uniformly and uniformly by the ordinary resistance heating vapor deposition method. A film is formed by a flash vapor deposition method in which particles are dropped into an evaporation source and each particle is instantaneously evaporated.

[0003]

However, there is a problem that it is extremely difficult to stably form a film having no surface defects by the flash vapor deposition method. On the other hand, in the case of a photoconductor for electrophotography, the image quality obtained depends largely on the surface quality of the photoconductor layer, but in the selenium laminated photoconductor, the surface layer is formed by flash vapor deposition as described above. Therefore, it is difficult to stably form a layer having few surface defects, and there is a problem that the manufacturing yield is unstable.

The present invention solves the above problems and provides a method for producing a selenium photoconductor for electrophotography, which can stably produce a selenium laminated photoconductor with few surface defects. And the subject.

[0005]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION According to the present invention, the above-mentioned problems are solved in an electrophotographic selenium photoconductor in which a selenium-based material is multi-stage vacuum-deposited on a conductive substrate to form a laminated photoconductor layer. In the manufacturing method, at least the surface layer of the photoreceptor layer is formed by flash vapor-depositing a granular selenium-based vapor deposition material having a particle diameter of 1.0 mm or more and 1.7 mm or less. It is more preferable to set the particle size of the selenium-based vapor deposition material within the range of 1.2 mm or more and 1.5 mm or less.

When the photoreceptor layer is composed of a charge transport layer, a hole injection layer, a charge generation layer and a surface protection layer, it is preferable to form the hole injection layer, the charge generation layer and the surface protection layer by flash vapor deposition. .

[0007]

[Function] Evaporation is performed by granulating the selenium-based vapor deposition material used for flash vapor deposition and adjusting the particle size within the range of 1.0 mm to 1.7 mm, more preferably 1.2 mm to 1.5 mm. It is possible to reduce the variation in the amount of vapor deposition material supplied to the source and prevent the occurrence of problems such as empty heating.In addition, it is sequentially supplied to the evaporation sources that have been heated to a high temperature in advance and vaporizes instantly. It is possible to suppress variations in the evaporation behavior of the evaporation material, suppress the occurrence of bumping phenomenon, etc., and form a film with a uniform film thickness and few defects. By flash-depositing at least the surface layer of the photoconductor layer using the vapor deposition material having a uniform particle size as described above to form a film, it is possible to stably manufacture a selenium laminated photoconductor with few surface defects.

[0008]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is an explanatory view of a main part of a flash vapor deposition method in the manufacturing method of the present invention. In FIG. 1, reference numeral 1 denotes a rotary belt for supplying a vapor deposition material to an evaporation source 3, which is stretched between the rotor 2 and the other rotor (not shown) and is a drive mechanism (not shown). Is driven to rotate as indicated by arrow A. The hole injection layer vapor deposition material 4, the charge generation layer vapor deposition material 5, and the surface protective layer vapor deposition material 6 are placed on the rotary belt 1 in a charge pattern as shown by dotted lines, and the rotary belt 1 is indicated by an arrow. By rotating like A, each vapor deposition material is sequentially supplied to the evaporation source 3 which has been heated to a high temperature in advance,
A hole injection layer, a charge generation layer, and a surface protection layer are sequentially formed on a charge transport layer formed on a substrate (not shown) by flash vapor deposition to produce a photoconductor.

Pure Se is vacuum-deposited on the outer surface of a cylindrical base body made of an aluminum alloy by an ordinary resistance heating vapor deposition method to form a charge transport layer having a thickness of 50 μm. Te 5.5 wt% to 2 wt% Te is formed on the charge transport layer by the method shown in FIG.
5 wt% Se / Te alloy, Te 45 wt% Se / T
e alloy and As / As alloy of 1.5 wt% As are sequentially flash-deposited to form a hole injection layer having a film thickness of 3 μm and a film thickness of 0.2
A charge generation layer having a thickness of 3 μm and a surface protective layer having a thickness of 3 μm were sequentially formed to manufacture the photoreceptor of the example. The particle size of the vapor deposition material used for flash vapor deposition is 1.2 mm to 1.5 m.
m and the evaporation source temperature was 340 ° C.

For comparison, the photosensitive material of the comparative example was prepared in the same manner as in the example except that the conventional vapor deposition material having a particle size in the range of 0.2 mm to 0.7 mm was used for the flash vapor deposition of each layer. The body was made. With respect to the photoconductors of 10 manufacturing lots of each of the examples and the comparative examples thus obtained, the occurrence state of convex defects on the photoconductor surface was examined. The result is shown in the diagram of FIG. In FIG. 3, the horizontal axis represents the diameter of surface convex defects, and the vertical axis represents the occurrence rate of surface convex defects of each size in the case of the photoreceptor of the comparative example (level of the conventional photoreceptor, 3 shows the occurrence rate in the photoconductor of the example with 100% as shown by the one-dot chain line). A circle indicates an average value, and a vertical solid line indicates variation.

As can be seen from FIG. 3, the surface-imperfect defects of any diameter have a significantly reduced amount of the photosensitive member of the example as compared with the photosensitive member of the comparative example, which has a large effect on the image quality. It can be seen that the occurrence of surface convex defects having a diameter of 3 mm or more can be reduced to 40% to 60% of the photoconductor of the comparative example with respect to the photoconductor of the comparative example. The electrophotographic characteristics were not different between the two.

In the above embodiment, the grain size of the vapor deposition material for each layer used for flash vapor deposition is 1.2 mm to 1.5 m.
Although m was used, a substantially similar effect was obtained even when the particle size range was widened to about 1.0 mm to 1.7 mm.

[0013]

According to the present invention, in the method for producing a selenium photoconductor for electrophotography, wherein a selenium-based material is multi-stage vacuum-deposited on a conductive substrate to form a laminated photoconductor layer. At least the surface layer has a grain size of 1.0 mm
It is formed by flash vapor deposition of a granular selenium-based vapor deposition material within the range of 1.7 mm or less. By such a manufacturing method, it becomes possible to stably manufacture a selenium laminated photoreceptor having few surface defects.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is an explanatory view of a main part of an example of a flash vapor deposition method in a manufacturing method of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a schematic cross-sectional view of an example of a selenium laminated photoconductor.

FIG. 3 is a graph showing the incidence of convex defects on the surface of the photoconductor.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 Rotary Belt 2 Rotor 3 Evaporation Source 4 Vapor Deposition Material for Hole Injection Layer 5 Vapor Deposition Material for Charge Generation Layer 6 Vapor Deposition Material for Surface Protection Layer 11 Base 12 Charge Transport Layer 13 Hole Injection Layer 14 Charge Generation Layer 15 Surface Protection Layer

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. A method for producing a selenium photoconductor for electrophotography, comprising forming a photoconductor layer by vacuum-depositing a selenium-based material on a conductive substrate in multiple stages, wherein at least a surface layer of the photoconductor layer is A method for producing a selenium photoreceptor for electrophotography, which is formed by flash vapor deposition of a granular selenium-based vapor deposition material having a particle size of 1.0 mm or more and 1.7 mm or less. 2. The method for producing a selenium photoreceptor for electrophotography according to claim 1, wherein the particle size of the selenium-based vapor deposition material is in the range of 1.2 mm or more and 1.5 mm or less. 3. The photoconductor layer comprises a charge transport layer, a hole injection layer, a charge generation layer and a surface protection layer, and the hole injection layer, the charge generation layer and the surface protection layer are formed by flash deposition. The method for producing a selenium photoreceptor for electrophotography according to claim 1 or 2.