Investigations of Charge Migration and Charge Trapping in Fatigued Organic Photoconductors

Abstract

This article presents the experimental photodischarge kinetics of electrostatically fatigued dual-layer organic photoconductors characterized by an electrophotographic incremental charging technique that reveals the differences in the photoconductor charging profiles. During normal operation, 15% of the holes that migrate to the surface after photodischarge are not neutralized by the negative surface ions. The accumulation of these lingering surface charges (charge transport material radical cations) manifests itself as defects in half-tone images, as either missing or reduced size dots or lines. In the presence of corona gases, these surface holes oxidize and reduce the energy barrier for hole injection from a positively charged surface, e.g., contact with a transfer roller. These injected holes accumulate near the charge generation layer and require twice the amount of negative charge to attain the same surface potential as that of a new organic photoconductor (OPC) drum. The damaged depth of this injection region extends to about 50 nm into the OPC surface and is easily removed by the printer's abrasion mechanisms (e.g., cleaning blade, toner, paper). d