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AssigneeMinnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company
InventorsRichard E. Bills, Hsin-hsin Chou, William V. Dower, Martin B. Wolk
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This invention relates to a laser imageable donor material that is capable of transferring pigment to a receiver, such as plain paper, polymeric film, metal and the like. The donor material is composed of at least a transparent film, an overlying layer of vapor coated black aluminum, and a dye coating or pigment coating dispersed on top of the black aluminum. A material which generates gas when irradiated may also be present as a separate layer under or in the dye or pigment layer and above the black aluminum layer. The construction can be addressed with diode lasers and diode-pumped solid state lasers. The invention can be used to produce large format digital halftone color proofs using high power air-cooled diode-pumped Nd:YAG and Nd:YLF lasers. Other materials could be transferred from the donor sheet in this process as well as the colorant (dye or pigment) layer.
A thermal transfer donor element comprising a substrate, a black metal layer on one surface of said substrate, a gas generating polymer layer over said black metal layer, and a colorant in or over said gas generating polymer layer, wherein said black metal layer comprises a mixture of metal and metal oxide.
A thermal transfer donor element comprising a substrate, a black metal layer on one surface of said substrate, a gas generating polymer layer over said black metal layer, and a colorant in or over said gas generating polymer layer, wherein said black metal layer is selected from black aluminum or black tin.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.