Image forming apparatus having a diamond-like structure surface protection layer on a photoconductive layer

An image forming apparatus comprising:

• image carrier means for carrying an image and comprising a conductive support, at least a photoconductive layer formed on said conductive support, and a surface protection layer formed on said photoconductive layer and including a charge injection layer;
• charging means for charging said image carrier means in contact with said surface protection layer when applied with a voltage;
• and
• developing means for developing a latent image formed on said image carrier means with toner to thereby produce a corresponding toner image,
• wherein said surface protection layer has a diamond-like carbon structure or an amorphous structure containing hydrogen,
• wherein said developing means develops the latent image with a magnet brush formed by magnetic particles for development,
• wherein said charging means comprises magnetic particles for charging having a mean particle size smaller than a mean particle size of said magnetic particles for development,
• wherein said surface protection layer has a volume resistance of 109 Ω·cm to 1012 Ω·cm and a Knoop hardness of 400 kg/mm2 or greater, and
• wherein a light transmission of the surface protective layer is 50% or more of a wavelength of light used for exposing the image carrier means.