IMAGE FORMING APPARATUS WITH ORIENTED FLAKE SHAPE TONER

摘要

An image forming apparatus includes a latent image forming unit that forms a latent image on a photoreceptor, a developing unit that accommodates a developer containing flake shape toner particles and develops the latent image using the developer to form a toner image on a surface of the photoreceptor, a transfer unit, a bias applying unit, and a fixing unit, wherein the flake shape toner particles have an average major axis length of from 7 μm to 20 μm and an average thickness of from 1 μm to 3 μm and contain a flake shape metallic pigment.

主权项

1. An image forming apparatus comprising:
a latent image forming unit that forms a latent image on a photoreceptor; a developing unit that accommodates a developer containing flake shape toner particles and develops the latent image using the developer to form a toner image on a surface of the photoreceptor; a transfer unit that transfers the toner image formed on the surface of the photoreceptor onto a recording medium; a bias applying unit that applies a bias voltage to the toner image transferred onto the recording medium such that major axis directions of the flake shape toner particles face substantially the same direction and such that the flake shape toner particles lie along a surface of the recording medium; and a fixing unit that fixes the toner image to which the bias voltage is applied, wherein the flake shape toner particles have an average major axis length of from 7 μm to 20 μm and an average thickness of from 1 μm to 3 μm and contain a flake shape metallic pigment, and wherein he metallic pigment has an average major axis length of 5 μm to 12 μm and an average thickness of from 0.01 μm to 0.5 μm.