Probing the Role of Electric Field Switching on a Positively Charged Dielectric Layer for Improving Nanoxerography

Abstract

We report a new method to localize the high definition of surface charges on soft layers despite the use of the low levels of electric field by switching the voltages of an electrode contacted with a positively charged polymeric layer. During electrical contacts for nanoxerography, electric field switching was approached to control the electron and hole injection, leading to an anisotropic formation of charged regions with high definitions caused by the hole-blocking effect we found in the experiments. To verify this, depositions of charged nanoparticles and measurements of surface potential by Kelvin Force Microscopy (KFM) were carried out with a metal-coated hierarchical polymeric stamp. In the results, conditions for the direct writing of charges under a low level of electric field (< 4 V/㎛) were studied by increasing the initial level of positive ions coated onto a soft dielectric layer with the utilization of the electric field switching concepts, overcoming the limitation of an insufficient electrostatic focusing effect of charge patterns from the original nanoxerography.