Layered photoconductive member having barrier of silicon and halogen
AssigneeCanon Kabushiki Kaisha
InventorsTadaji Fukuda, Shigeru Shirai, Junichiro Kanbe
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Abstract
Disclosed is a panchromatic photoconductive element for electrophotography having a layered structure comprising a substrate, a barrier layer and a photoconductive layer. The barrier layer inhibits injection of carriers from the substrate. Amorphous silicon forms a matrix for either the photoconductive layer or the barrier layer.
Claims36
A photoconductive member comprising a substrate for the photoconductive member, a photoconductive layer, and a barrier layer arranged between the substrate and the photoconductive layer, said barrier layer having a function which inhibits injection of carriers from the side of said substrate into said photoconductive layer, characterized in that at least one of said photoconductive layer and said barrier layer is made of an amorphous material in which silicon atom is a matrix and halogen atom is a constituent atom, a depletion layer region is created at the interfacial region between the photoconductive layer and the barrier layer, a part of said barrier layer is present between said depletion layer region and said substrate in a thickness capable of bringing substantially negligible probability which the carriers having the same polarity as that of the minor carriers in said barrier layer reaches said depletion layer region from the side of said substrate in order to inhibit injection of the carriers having the same polarity as that of the minor carriers in said barrier layer from the side of said substrate to said photoconductive layer, and the photocarriers having the same polarity as that of the major carriers in said barrier layer among photocarriers generating in said photoconductive layer by irradiation of an electromagnetic waves are moved in the direction of said barrier layer.
A photoconductive member comprising a substrate for the photoconductive member, a photoconductive layer, and a barrier layer being present between the substrate and the photoconductive layer, said barrier layer having a function which inhibits injection of a carrier from the side of said substrate into said photoconductive layer, characterized in that at least one of said photoconductive layer and said barrier layer is constructed by amorphous material in which silicon atom is a matrix and halogen atom is a constituent, a depletion layer region is created at the interfacial region between the photoconductive layer and the barrier layer, said barrier layer having a thickness of 0.02-0.5 microns and containing in an amount of 50-1000 ppm of an impurity which governs the conductive type of the barrier layer, said impurity being an atom in III A or V A group of the periodic table, said photoconductive layer having a thickness of 1-70 microns and containing no impurity which governs the conductive type of the photoconductive layer or in an amount not reaching 50 ppm of said impurity being an atom in III A group of the periodic table, and when N represents a quantity of said impurity contained in said barrier layer and M represents a quantity of said impurity contained in said photoconductive layer, a value of (N-M)/M ranges from 0.5 to 1.0.
A photoconductive member comprising a substrate for the photoconductive member, a photoconductive layer, and a barrier layer arranged between the substrate and the photoconductive layer, said barrier layer having a function which inhibits injection of carriers from the side of said substate into said photoconductive layer, characterized in that at least one of said photoconductive layer and said barrier layer is made of an amorphous material in which silicon atom is a matrix and halogen atom is a constituent atom, a depletion layer region is created at the interfacial region between the photoconductive layer and the barrier layer, said barrier layer containing an impurity which governs the conductive type of said barrier layer to inhibit injection of the carriers having the same polarity as that of the minor carriers in said barrier layer from the side of said substrate to said photoconductive layer,
- said photoconductive layer containing an impurity which governs the conductive type of said photoconductive layer or not containing such impurity, and theimpurity concentration to satisfy a relationship of (N-M)/N ranges from 0.5 to 1.0 wherein N is a quantity of the impurity contained in the barrier layer, and M is a quantity of the impurity contained in the pootoconductive layer.
A photoconductive member according to claim 26, in which an impurity atom contained in a barrier layer ranges from 50 ppm to 1000 ppm.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.