Image forming apparatus including preselected range between charge injection layer and voltage potential

An image forming apparatus comprising:

• a photoconductive element comprising a conductive support rotatably supported and a charge injection layer and a surface protection layer sequentially laminated on said conductive support;
• charging means including a conductive member for injecting, when a preselected voltage is applied to a conductive body thereof, a charge in said charge injection layer with said conductive body contacting said surface protection layer;
• writing means for exposing a charged surface of said photoconductive element imagewise to thereby locally vary a potential deposited on said photoconductive element and electrostatically form a latent image;
• and
• developing means for developing the latent image to thereby produce a corresponding toner image, said toner image being transferred from said photoconductive element to a recording medium;
• wherein assuming that said charge injection layer has a thickness of D micrometers, and that the potential deposited on the surface of said photoconductive element by said conductive member is V volts in absolute value, then a ratio V/D is confined in a preselected range that does not contaminate a background of said photoconductive element.