Research and Development

In a laser beam printer and a digital copying machine, an image is written on a charged photoconductor with a laser beam, and toner is moved by electric force to the written image, thus the written image is visualized. This process (developing) includes two types; one is a contact method and the other is a non-contact method. Konica Minolta makes it possible to reproduce high definition images by using a non-contact developing (SMT developing) system which makes toner to fly with an oscillatory electric field for the latest model of a color laser beam printer.

In the case of the non-contact developing system in which the strong oscillatory electric field causes toner to fly to a photoconductor, and a developing electric field on the photoconductor is optimized, toner adheres uniformly with exact amount even for microscopic dots, so that clear images are obtained.

In the contact developing system, adhesion of toner is not uniform for microscopic dots because the developing electric field on the photoconductor is weak, resulting in a coarse image.

Even in the area of at least 175 lines (70 lines in a newspaper) used in ordinary printing, development at high fidelity of input data is possible.