Ion flow control characteristics for high quality continuous-tone printing

Abstract

Ion flow control is investigated theoretically and experimentally in order to achieve a high quality continuous-tone electrostatic printing process. The behaviour of ion flux controlled by a pair of aperture electrodes is clarified by an analysis using computer simulation of ion trajectories, paying particular attention to the diameter of the ion flux. An electric charge image is formed experimentally by controlling ion projection time and analysed by SEM observation and by measurement of surface potential, revealing its change with ion projection time. Gray-scale printing characteristics are then clarified by measuring the optical densities of the image developed with toner; 64 levels of gray-scale image are obtained with resolutions of 8 dots mm-1 and 12 dots mm-1, demonstrating the feasibility of this method for continuous-tone printing.