Carrier and two-component developer for electrophotography

A two-component developer comprising a toner and a carrier,

• said toner comprising toner particles, each toner particle comprising a binder resin and a coloring agent, and
• said carrier comprising carrier particles, each carrier particle comprising a core particle comprising at least a magnetic material and a surface coating layer provided on said core particle comprising at least a resin,
• said surface coating layer being constituted of a plurality of regions, said regions being separately formed and joined together to form a complex configuration, and having different phase lags when said surface coating layer is subjected to scanning by phase imaging measurement using a scanning probe microscope in a tapping mode,
• wherein a region having a phase lag over the average phase lag obtained from Eavg=Σ(E(i)·S(i))/ΣS(i) has an area SO, and SO and ΣS(i) are in a relationship of 10%≦SO/ΣS(i)×100≦90% when each region comprises a component A(i) having an area S(i) and a phase lag E(i), in which i represents the number of regions with different phase lags.

A developer container which is filled with a two-component developer comprising a toner and a carrier,

• said toner comprising toner particles, each toner particle comprising a binder resin and a coloring agent, and
• said carrier comprising carrier particles, each carrier particle comprising a core particle comprising at least a magnetic material and a surface coating layer provided on said core particle comprising at least a resin,
• said surface coating layer being constituted of a plurality of regions, said region's being separately formed and joined together to form a complex configuration, and having different phase lags when said surface coating layer is subjected to scanning by phase imaging measurement using a scanning probe microscope in a tapping mode,
• wherein a region having a phase lag over the average phase lag obtained from Eavg=Σ(E(i)·S(i))/ΣS(i) has an area SO, and SO and ΣS(i) are in a relationship of 10%≦SO/ΣS(i)×100≦90% when each region comprises a component A(i) having an area S(i) and a phase lag E(i), in which i represents the number of regions with different phase lags.

An electrophotographic image forming apparatus comprising a developer container which is filled with a two-component developer comprising a toner and a carrier,

• said toner comprising toner particles, each toner particle comprising a binder resin and a coloring agent, and
• said carrier comprising carrier particles, each carrier particle comprising a core particle comprising at least a magnetic material and a surface coating layer provided on said core particle comprising at least a resin,
• said surface coating layer being constituted of a plurality of regions, said regions being separately formed and joined together to form a complex configuration, and having different phase lags when said surface coating layer is subjected to scanning by phase imaging measurement using a scanning probe microscope in a tapping mode,
• wherein a region having a phase lag over the average phase lag obtained from Eavg=Σ(E(i)·S(i))/ΣS(i) has an area SO, and SO and ΣS(i) are in a relationship of 10%≦SO/ΣS(i)×100≦90% when each region comprises a component A(i) having an area S(i) and a phase lag E(i), in which i represents the number of regions with different phase lags.