Asymmetric silver salt dimers and imaging compositions, materials and methods using same

Abstract

A non-photosensitive silver dimer compound comprises two different silver salts, provided that when the two different silver salts comprise straight-chain, saturated hydrocarbon groups as the silver coordinating ligands, those ligands differ by at least 6 carbon atoms. Many of these silver dimer compounds can be represented by the following Structure I: wherein each E is independently oxygen, sulfur, nitrogen, selenium, or tellurium, R and R′ are different alkyl groups, aryl groups, aromatic heterocyclic groups, or halo atoms, provided that when E is oxygen, R and R′ are both straight-chain, saturated hydrocarbon groups, those hydrocarbon groups differ from each other by at least 6 carbon atoms. These silver dimer compounds are useful in thermally-developable imaging materials including thermographic and photothermographic materials.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.