JPS63135952A - Electrophotographic sensitive body - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To obtain the titled body having high optical sensitivity and to reduce residual voltage by laminating at least an amorphous silicon layer and an amorphous silicon carbide layer contg. group Va elements of a periodic table on a conductive substrate in this order, and by generating substantially an light carrier at the amorphous silicon carbide layer. CONSTITUTION:The titled body is formed by selecting the amorphous silicon carbide layer 5 composed of a-SiC layer contg. the group Va elements of the periodic table of 0.1-10,000ppm as the light carrier generating layer, and by combining said layer 5 with the amorphous silicon layer 6 composed of a-Si layer. In case that the a-SiC layer 5 and the a-Si layer 6 are combined by laminating them on a substrate 1 in this order, as shown by the figure, the a-Si layer 6 has the functions of transferring the carrier generated at the a-SiC layer 5 and maintaining voltage of the titled body, thereby retarding the injection of the carrier from the substrate 1 to the a-SiC layer 5. Thus, the trapping of carrier in the inside of the a-Si layer is remarkably lessened whereby the high optical sensitivity of the titled body is obtd. 1 and the residual voltage of the titled body is reduced.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention (Field of Industrial Application) The present invention relates to an electrophotographic photoreceptor that has increased photosensitivity to long-wavelength light and increased charging ability, and is particularly suitable as a photoreceptor for use in a laser beam printer. be.

(Prior art and its problems) In recent years, electrophotographic photoreceptors have made remarkable progress, and the development of ultra-high-speed copying machines and laser beam printers is actively underway. Because they are used in In response to this demand, hydrogenated amorphous silicon is attracting attention because it has excellent heat resistance, wear resistance, non-pollution properties, and photosensitivity characteristics.

Such amorphous silicon (hereinafter abbreviated as a-3i)
As an electrophotographic photoreceptor, a laminated type photoreceptor as shown in FIG. 2 has been proposed.

That is, according to FIG. 2, a conductive substrate such as aluminum (
1) A-Si carrier injection blocking layer (2) on top, a-3
The i-carrier generation layer (3) and the surface protection layer (4) are sequentially laminated, and this carrier injection blocking layer (2) is layered on the substrate (
The surface protective layer (4) is formed to prevent injection of carriers from 1) to increase the surface potential, and a highly hard material is used for the surface protective layer (4) to increase the durability of the photoreceptor.

On the other hand, germanium element (
A photoreceptor has also been proposed that contains Go) to increase the photosensitivity in the wavelength range of 600 to 850 nm, thereby making it suitable for semiconductor laser beam printers.

However, with the latter photoreceptor, the photosensitivity peak shifts to longer wavelengths, but on the other hand, the carrier generation layer (
The problem of 3) is that the dark conductivity increases rapidly, which lowers the surface potential, and as a result, it becomes difficult to obtain a high-density image.

To solve this problem, a second amorphous silicon carbide layer, an amorphous silicon germanium layer, and a first amorphous silicon carbide layer (
A photoreceptor in which amorphous silicon carbide (hereinafter abbreviated as a-5iC) was sequentially laminated was published in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 58-19204.
This is proposed in Publication No. 4.

That is, the first a-SiC layer is the above-mentioned surface protective layer (4).
It is formed for the same purpose as , stabilizes the repeated characteristics of charging and light attenuation, and increases wear resistance and heat resistance.
The amorphous silicon germanium layer (hereinafter amorphous silicon germanium is abbreviated as a-5iGe) is a photoconductive layer that exhibits high photoconductivity for long-wavelength light, and the second a-3iC layer is used for potential retention and carrier transport. It has both functions, and has the function of efficiently and quickly injecting optical carriers generated in a-5iGeFJ into the substrate.

However, according to this laminated photoreceptor, the second a-
The SiC layer improves potential retention and increases the surface potential, which makes it possible to obtain images with high density.
On the other hand, due to the carbon content in this a-3iC layer, the carrier mobility tends to be lower than that of a-Si.
It is trapped in the C layer, and as a result, it is difficult to reduce the light sensitivity characteristics and residual potential.

Furthermore, in semiconductor laser beam printers, since the light source is coherent light, there is a problem in that interference fringes are likely to occur in images. The cause of this interference fringe pattern is that coherent light reaches the substrate, and the reflected light on the substrate interferes with the incident light. To solve this problem, the substrate surface is processed to create the desired surface. It has been proposed to set the roughness so that the light reaching the substrate is diffusely reflected. However, this surface roughening treatment inevitably increases manufacturing costs, and a solution that eliminates the need for this treatment is desired.

(Object of the Invention) Therefore, the present invention has been completed in view of the above, and its purpose is to prevent photoexcited carriers from being trapped in the layer region of a photoreceptor, thereby achieving high photosensitivity and reducing residual potential. It is an object of the present invention to provide an electrophotographic photoreceptor that can achieve a reduction in surface potential and a high surface potential.

Another object of the present invention is to provide an electrophotographic photoreceptor that has increased photosensitivity in the wavelength range of 600 to 850n111 and is suitable for use in semiconductor laser beam printers.

Still another object of the present invention is to provide an electrophotographic photoreceptor which is free from interference fringe patterns in images and which achieves cost reduction.

(Means for Solving the Problems) According to the present invention, at least an a-3i layer and a thickness of 0.1 to 10. A-SiC layers containing OOOppm Group Va elements of the periodic table are sequentially laminated and a-3
Provided is an electrophotographic photoreceptor characterized in that photocarriers are substantially generated in the iC layer.

The present invention will be explained in detail below.

The basic layer structure of the electrophotographic photoreceptor of the present invention is as shown in FIG.
．． Selecting an a-3iC layer (5) containing OOOppm Group Va element of the periodic table (hereinafter abbreviated as Group Va element),
It is important that this layer (5) and a-Siii (6) are combined and that the lamination order is as shown in FIG.

That is, according to the experiments of the present inventors, this a-SiC layer (
When the spectral sensitivity characteristics of 5) were measured, it was found that the photosensitivity could be particularly increased in the wavelength range of 650 to 850 nf@, making it suitable as a photoconductor for semiconductor laser beam printers.

To explain the above point in detail, the spectral sensitivity of the a-Si layer decreases rapidly in the long wavelength region of 700 nm or more, whereas carbon is added as a main constituent element to the a-3i layer and When .1 to 10,000 ppm of Va group elements are contained, the photosensitivity is inferior to that of the a-5i layer in the short wavelength region, but on the other hand, the recovery of photosensitivity becomes remarkable in the long wavelength region, especially at 700 nm or more. In the wavelength range of a
It has been found that the photosensitivity can be significantly increased compared to the -3i layer.

Based on this knowledge (according to the a-SiC layer (5), the spectral sensitivity peak of a-SiCjii that does not contain Va group elements is a
- This contradicts the conventionally well-known phenomenon that the photosensitivity characteristics generally decrease as the wavelength shifts to the shorter wavelength side compared to the Si layer.This point is inferred based on the experimental results conducted by the inventors. Therefore, if the a-SiC layer contains Va group elements within a predetermined range, the film quality will be improved over the entire layer, the mobility of excited carriers will increase, the photoconductivity will increase as above, and further N It is believed that the effect of significantly increasing the photosensitivity to long-wavelength light that can penetrate deep into the film in the thickness direction is achieved.

The Va group elements include N+P+As, Sb, etc. Among them, P is preferable because it has excellent covalent bonding properties and can sensitively change semiconductor characteristics. Moreover, the content of this Va group element is 0.1
to 10. OOOoom, preferably 1 to 1.000
ppm, optimally set within the range of 10 to 1,000 ppm (if it is less than 0,000 ppm, the spectral sensitivity will not recover sufficiently on the long wavelength side and the a-Si layer will not recover at wavelengths over 700 nm). Moreover, when it exceeds 10.OOppm, the dark resistivity becomes small and the ratio of dark resistivity to bright resistivity becomes small, degrading the electrophotographic characteristics.

Furthermore, when the a-SiC layer (5) and the a-5i layer (6) are combined in the stacking order shown in FIG.
has the function of transporting the carriers generated in the a-SiC layer (5) and maintaining the potential, and the a-SiC layer (1)
- It can have a function of preventing carriers from being injected into SiCjii (5).

In this way, a-3i layer (6
), the carrier mobility of a-5i itself is relatively high, which greatly reduces the chance of carriers being trapped inside a-Si[, and as a result,
High photosensitivity and reduced residual potential can be achieved.

According to the present invention, when a-Sili (6) is formed as described above, it is difficult to increase the charging ability compared to the a-5iC layer, but this drawback can be overcome by the a-SiC layer (5). It is complementary.

That is, since the a-Si layer (6) does not contain carbon, it is not possible to set the dark conductivity to a sufficiently small value, but instead, the a-5iCFj (5) contains carbon. This makes it possible to increase the charging ability of the photoreceptor.

Furthermore, according to the present invention, it is important that optical carriers are substantially generated in the a-SiC layer (5) by the stacking order shown in FIG. As a result, the problem of interference fringes in the image is solved.

Although the electrophotographic photoreceptor of the present invention is assembled based on the idea as described above, the object of the present invention can be advantageously achieved by making various limitations as described below.

For a-SiCJi (5), the content ratio of St element and C element is preferably set within the range of 1:1 to 100:1, preferably within the range of 3:1 to too:t; If it is within the range, the dark conductivity can be made sufficiently small and the charging ability can be improved.

Furthermore, the thickness of the a-5iC layer (5) is determined as appropriate so that this layer can essentially serve as a photocarrier generation layer, but the inventors conducted experiments with the thickness changed in many ways. As a result, if the thickness is set so that the transmittance of the a-5iC layer (5) to incident light is 30% or less, preferably 20% or less, no light will reach the substrate (1). In ii (5), the transmittance can be reduced as the thickness is increased, but on the other hand, the residual potential of this photoreceptor tends to increase. Therefore, a-SiC
The thickness of the layer (5) is determined by the transmittance and residual potential of the layer, and according to repeated experiments conducted by the inventors, the thickness is 1 to 10011 m, preferably 1 to 30 m.
It has been found that μn+, optimally, can be set within the range of 1 to 10 μm.

The elements for dangling bond termination that are contained so that the a-SiC layer (5) has photoconductivity include hydrogen element (H) and halogen element, and the content of these elements is 5 to 5.
0 atoms χ, preferably 5 to 40 atoms χ, optimally 10 to 30 atoms χ, and H element is usually used. Since this H element is easily taken into the terminal portion, the localized level density in the band gap is reduced, thereby providing excellent semiconductor characteristics.

In addition, a part of this H element may be replaced with a halogen element, which lowers the localized level density and increases photoconductivity and heat resistance (temperature characteristics), and the substitution ratio is dangling. Out of all the elements for bond termination, 0.01 to 50 atoms χ, preferably 1 to 30 atoms χ are preferable, and the halogen elements include F, C1°Br, I, At, etc.
Particularly, the use of P is desirable because its large electronegativity increases the bonding between atoms, thereby providing excellent thermal stability.

It is necessary that the a-5i layer (6) also contain a dangling bond termination element, and the type and content of the element are determined as appropriate under the same conditions as the a-SiC layer (5) described above.

According to the present invention, based on the laminated type photoreceptor having the above-described two-layer structure, electrophotographic characteristics can be improved by laminating other layers as shown in FIGS. 3 to 5.

That is, according to FIG. 3, the substrate (1) and the a-Si layer (6)
A carrier injection blocking layer (7) is interposed between a-5i
efficiently injecting carriers from the layer (6) into the substrate (1) and blocking injection of carriers from the substrate (1);
This allows the surface potential to be further increased. This carrier injection blocking layer (7) is made of an organic material such as polyimide resin, 5iOz, SiO, AhOz, or SiC.

5iJ4+Amorphous carbon, a-Si layer a-
It is formed from an inorganic material such as 5iC.

In forming this carrier injection blocking layer (7) from a semiconductor material, the conductivity type is controlled to be P type when the photoreceptor is charged to positive polarity, and N type when charged to have page turning properties. It is preferable to control the carrier injection to further improve the carrier injection blocking effect. For example, this P-type semiconductor material contains elements of group 1 [1a] of the periodic table such as B, and N
The a-type semiconductor material contains periodicity group Va elements such as P within a range of 50 to 110,000 pp.
3i or a-SiC.

Furthermore, when a photoconductive amorphous layer containing carbon is formed on the surface side of the photoreceptor as shown in FIGS. -Hardness is smaller than that of the 5iC surface protective layer,
Thereby, even if the surface is repeatedly polished and regenerated using an abrasive or the like, the initial characteristics of the photoreceptor can be maintained without being limited in the amount of polishing. For example, even if the surface deteriorates due to exposure to corona discharge or filming on the surface of the photoreceptor due to the resin component of the developer, good images can be stably supplied over a long period of time by this polishing regeneration.

Moreover, according to FIG. 4, a case is shown in which a surface protection layer N(8) is formed on the surface of the basic laminated photoreceptor shown in FIG. Various materials can be used as long as they have high corrosion resistance and hardness properties. For example, the same inorganic or organic material as used for the carrier injection blocking layer (7) can be used, thereby increasing the durability and environmental resistance of the photoreceptor.

Furthermore, a carrier injection blocking layer (7) as shown in FIG.
) and surface protection N(8), the electrophotographic characteristics can be further improved.

Additionally, a bonding layer (
The thickness of this layer is preferably 3 μm or less). This bonding layer includes, for example, an a-3i layer (6), which is gradually increased so that its content matches the required C content and Va group element content of a-3iCF (5) at the end of the bonding layer formation. There is a layer thickness set to .

Thus, according to the electrophotographic photoreceptor of the present invention, carriers are not trapped inside the layers of the photoreceptor due to the laminated photoreceptor combining the a-3i layer (6) and the a-SiC layer (5). A photosensitive material suitable for semiconductor laser beam printers that achieves reductions in sensitivity characteristics and residual potential, as well as a high surface potential, and eliminates the need for surface roughening treatment of the substrate because the incident light does not reach the substrate. It became a body.

Next, based on the above results, the present inventors made further efforts in research, and found that the carbon (C) of the a-SiC layer (5)
) content and Va group element content were changed over the layer thickness direction, and it was discovered that photoreceptors of various aspects could be obtained by this.

That is, according to FIGS. 6 to 13, the horizontal axis represents a-SiC
It represents the layer thickness from the interface (a) with the a-Si layer of layer (5) to the surface (b) on the opposite side, and the vertical axis represents the C content and Va group element content, Each content is a relative amount. In addition, in these figures, the solid line and the broken line indicate the C content and the Va group element content, respectively.

As is clear from these figures, in the layer region close to the b-plane side on the incident light side inside the a-5iC layer (5), the content of group Ⅰ elements is relatively low, or the C content is relatively high. As a result, the bandgap becomes larger in the layer region on the incident light side, and there is further photoconductivity, and as a result, the incident light is photoelectrically converted with high efficiency, and the photosensitivity can be increased.

On the other hand, in the N region close to the a-plane, the Va group element content is relatively high or the C content is relatively low, which increases the absorption coefficient in this layer region. The incident light is completely absorbed within this layer region.

Therefore, by forming both N regions as described above, it is possible to obtain an electrophotographic photoreceptor having high photosensitivity characteristics and further suppressing the generation of interference fringes.

Moreover, according to FIGS. 7, 9, 10, and 13, the Va group element content is relatively low in the layer region close to the 5th surface on the incident light side inside the a-3iC layer (5). In! The content of Va group elements is relatively high in the region, which creates a tilt in the Fermi level inside a-3iC1(5), which reduces traps and pulls of excited carriers in the low electric field region. As a result, the residual potential can be reduced.

Next, a method for manufacturing the electrophotographic photoreceptor of the present invention will be described.

The a-Si layer (6) and the a-5iC layer (5) can be formed by thin film forming means such as glow discharge decomposition method, ion blating method, reactive sputtering method, vacuum evaporation method, thermal CVD method, etc. , the raw materials used for this are solid,
It can be either liquid or gas.

In addition, when forming layers other than the a-Si layer (6) and the a-5iC layer (5), these layers may be
- If it is formed using StC, it is preferable in that a similar thin film forming means can be used, and furthermore, when the same film forming apparatus is used, it is possible to continuously stack layers by a common thin film forming means. There are advantages.

For example, using a glow discharge decomposition device, a-5i layer or a-
When manufacturing a photoreceptor made of a SiC layer, Si-based gases such as 5iHa, 5iJi+5iJs, CH4, CJt, CzH4, CJ6. There are c-based gases such as C3He, and He gas+Hz gas may be used as the carrier gas.

According to this glow discharge decomposition method, a-Si is separated from a mixed gas in which acetylene (czl gas) is added to Si-based gas.
When CJi is formed, it is desirable in that a significantly high speed of film formation can be achieved.

Next, when the electrophotographic photoreceptor described in the embodiments of the present invention is formed from a-3i or a-3iC using the glow discharge decomposition method, the manufacturing method is performed using the capacitively coupled glow discharge decomposition apparatus shown in FIG. explain.

In the figure, tanks (9) (10) (11) (12)
(13) have SiH4, CJz, and Pt(s (
H! (contains 0.2χ with gas dilution), H! , NO gas is sealed, and H2 is also used as a carrier gas.

These gases are controlled by the corresponding regulating valves (14) (15) (
16) (17) It is released by opening (18), and its flow rate is controlled by the mass flow controller (19) (
20) (21) (22) (23), gas from tanks (9), (10), (11), and (12) is sent to the main pipe (24), and NO gas from the tank (13) is sent to the main pipe (25). ). Note that (26) and (27) are stop valves. The gas flowing through the main pipes (24) and (25) is fed into the reaction tube (28);
) A capacitively coupled discharge electrode (29) is installed inside the reaction tube ( 28), a cylindrical film-forming substrate (30) made of aluminum is placed on a sample holder (31), and this holder (31) is connected to a motor (32).
The substrate (30) is heated to about 200 to 400°C by suitable heating means.
, preferably to a temperature of about 200 to 350°C. Furthermore, the interior of the reaction tube (28) is kept in a high vacuum state (gas pressure during discharge of 0.1 to 2.0 mm) during the formation of the a-SiC film.
Rotary pump (33 Torr)
) and a diffusion pump (34).

In the glow discharge decomposition device configured as above,
For example, when forming an a-3iC film containing P on the substrate (32), the adjustment valve (14> (15) (16)
(17) and each SiH4+CtHz+Pt
b+Hz gas is released. The discharge l is controlled by mass flow controllers (19), (20), (21), and (22), and these mixed gases are flowed into the reaction tube (28) via the main pipe (24). And the reaction tube (28)
The interior of the device is in a vacuum state of approximately 0.1 to 2.0 Torr, the substrate temperature is 200 to 400°C, and the capacitively coupled discharge electrode (
29), the high frequency power is set at 50KW to 3KW and the frequency is set at 1 to 50MHz, and a glow discharge occurs, the gas decomposes, and the a-3iC film containing P is deposited on the substrate at high speed. is formed.

(Example) Next, examples of the present invention will be described.

(Example 1): ↓In this example, a-S of a single composition is used throughout the layer thickness direction.
An i film or an a-3iC film was formed and the spectral sensitivity characteristics were measured. That is, a 3 x 3 cm square aluminum flat plate was prepared, and an aluminum cylindrical substrate (
A part of the peripheral surface of 30) is cut out, and this flat plate is installed in this notch, and an a-3i film or an a-5iC film is produced on this flat plate.

First, add SiH4 gas to 101005e from the tank (9).
Ht gas is supplied from the tank (12) for 300 seconds at a flow rate of
Then, the substrate temperature was set to 300° C., the gas pressure was set to 0.45 Torr, and the high frequency power was set to 150 −, and a 5 μm thick 1Si film was formed on the above flat plate by glow discharge decomposition method. did.

In addition, in the above manufacturing method, C from the tank (10) is further added.
2H! A 5 μm thick a-5iC film was similarly formed on a flat plate under the same manufacturing conditions except that gas was released at a flow rate of 10105e and Plh gas was released from the tank (11) at a flow rate of 30 seconds.

As a result of measuring the spectral sensitivity characteristics of the a-3t film and the a-SiC film obtained in this way, the results were as shown in Figure 15.
A plot of the spectral sensitivity of the film and the a-5iC film, a,
b is each spectral sensitivity curve. Note that this measured value of spectral sensitivity indicates the photoconductivity when irradiated with equal energy light at each wavelength.

As is clear from this result, the a-SiC film containing P has lower spectral sensitivity than the a-3T film in the wavelength region of 700 nm or less, but has higher spectral sensitivity than the a-Si film in the wavelength region of 700 nm or more. Sensitivity.

(Example 2) In this example, a carrier injection blocking layer (7) and an a-3i carrier transport layer were formed on the substrate (30) under the manufacturing conditions shown in Table 1 using the glow discharge decomposition apparatus shown in FIG. (6), an a-5iC carrier generation layer (5), and a surface protective layer (8) were sequentially formed to produce an electrophotographic photosensitive drum. Note that the carrier injection blocking layer (7) is doped with oxygen and nitrogen using NO gas to improve its adhesion to the substrate.

[Margin below]

This drum is a semiconductor laser beam printer (wavelength?
70nm, printing speed 20 sheets/min), high-quality images were obtained with high image density, high contrast, and no ghost phenomenon, and no interference fringes or capri. .

According to this 'f944, an a-5iC layer (5) is formed on a glass substrate under the same conditions, and its transmittance (wavelength ?7) is formed on a glass substrate under the same conditions.
0 nm) was measured and found to be 25χ. Moreover, the P content of this a-5iC layer (5) was about IQQppm.

(Example 3) In (Example 2), a CtHz gas was further released at a flow rate of 10105e during the formation of the a-Si carrier transport layer, and a photoreceptor drum was manufactured under the same manufacturing conditions as in (Example 2) except for the following: As the carrier transport layer of this drum, a-
When a SiC layer is formed, this photoreceptor drum (Example 2)
When printed using the same laser beam printer, the image density was high and there was no ghosting phenomenon.
Furthermore, no interference fringes were produced in the image, but on the other hand, capri was produced in the image.

(Example 4) In (Example 2), C
If a photoreceptor drum is manufactured under the same manufacturing conditions as in (Example 2) except that the emission of the . When mounted on the same laser beam printer as in Example 2) and printed, no interference fringes were produced in the image, but the image density was low, the contrast was poor, and a ghost phenomenon occurred.

(Example 5) In this example, the carrier injection blocking layer, the a-Si carrier transport layer and the
An electrophotographic photoreceptor as shown in FIG. 3 was manufactured by sequentially forming -5iC carrier generation layers and without forming a surface protective layer.

This photosensitive drum is connected to a semiconductor laser beam printer (
When installed and printed at a wavelength of 7700111 and a printing speed of 20 sheets, 7 minutes, a high-quality image with high image density, high contrast, and no ghost phenomenon was obtained, with no interference fringes or capri. Ta.

Next, this photosensitive pair was subjected to a polishing and regeneration evaluation test.

That is, the surface of this photoreceptor drum is forcibly polished with diamond powder to a depth of about 0.3 μm and about 0.0 μm from the surface.
7 μm, approximately 1.2 μm, and approximately 2.0 μm in thickness, the photoreceptor was then negatively charged with -5.6 KV corona discharge, and then irradiated with monochromatic light (770 nm). This measures the saturated surface potential and photosensitivity,
Further, the photoreceptor was developed with a one-component developing agent, and the image density and capri density were measured using an image densitometer, and the results shown in Table 2 were obtained.

Further, as a comparative example, an a-St photoconductor as shown in FIG. 2 was manufactured under the conditions shown in Table 3, and then an evaluation test of polishing and regeneration was conducted on this photoconductor. As shown in Table 2, The results were obtained.

[Margin below]

As is clear from Table 2, the surface potential and sensitivity of the photoreceptor of the present invention do not change significantly from the initial characteristics even after polishing approximately 2.0 μm from the surface, and the image characteristics also maintain the initial good image. was completed.

However, according to the comparative example, the initial characteristics could be maintained until the presence of the surface protective layer (0.3 μm polishing), but the image deteriorated dramatically from the point where the surface thickness exceeded 0.7 μm. ,
After 2.0 μl polishing, the surface potential decreased significantly.

From these experiments, it was confirmed that according to the photoreceptor drum of this example, the initial characteristics were maintained at least up to a polishing amount of 2.0μ steel when re-polishing was performed using the desired polishing method described above. .

(Effects of the Invention) As described above, according to the electrophotographic photoreceptor of the present invention, the a-3iC layer containing group a elements can be used as a carrier generation layer for long wavelength light, and thereby, semiconductor laser This resulted in a photoconductor suitable for beam printers. Furthermore, according to this photoreceptor, since the incident light does not reach the substrate, interference fringes do not occur in the image, and there is no need to roughen the surface of the substrate to increase its surface roughness.
This provides a low-cost electrophotographic photoreceptor.

Further, according to the electrophotographic photoreceptor of the present invention, it is possible to prevent photoexcited carriers from being trapped in the layer region of the photoreceptor, thereby achieving high photosensitivity characteristics and a reduction in residual potential, and increasing the surface potential. We were able to.

Furthermore, according to the present invention, the surface layer of the photoreceptor is made of a-3iCN without forming a surface protective layer, and even when using the photoreceptor obtained thereby, a clear image with a high black background density and no fog can be obtained. Furthermore, since this a-SiC layer is a photoconductive layer, there is no limit to the amount of polishing even if the surface is repeatedly polished and regenerated with an abrasive, thereby maintaining the initial characteristics of the photoreceptor. I can do it.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a sectional view showing the basic layer structure of the electrophotographic photoreceptor of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a sectional view showing the layer structure of a conventional general amorphous silicon photoreceptor, and FIGS. Fifth
6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, and 13 are cross-sectional views showing other layer structures of the electrophotographic photoreceptor of the present invention, respectively. The figure is a diagram showing the carbon content and the Group Va element content of the periodic table in the layer thickness direction of the amorphous silicon carbide layer of the electrophotographic photoreceptor according to the present invention. Capacitively coupled glow discharge decomposition device! Figure 11, i15
The figure is a diagram showing a spectral sensitivity curve of an amorphous silicon carbide layer. 1... Conductive substrate 4.8... Surface protective layer 5... Amorphous silicon carbide layer 6... Amorphous silicon layer 7... Carrier injection blocking layer Patent applicant (663) Kyocera Corporation Contaminant Takaoyo Rihito Patent Attorney (8898) Katsuhiko Tahara Figure 6
Fig. 7 Fig. 8 Fig. 9 Fig. 10 Fig. 11 Fig. 12 Fig. 18 Fig. α and α register l-length (n, m)

Claims (1)

[Claims] At least an amorphous silicon layer on a conductive substrate and 0
．． An electrophotographic photoreceptor characterized in that amorphous silicon carbide layers containing 1 to 10,000 ppm of Group Va elements of the periodic table are sequentially laminated, and photocarriers are substantially generated in the amorphous silicon carbide layers.