Radiant fusing in the wavelength range between 500nm - 10μm (visible - far infrared (IR-C)) with continuous radiation or pulsed radiation is used in copying and printing since the early days of commercial application of electrophotographic technology.The application of radiant fusing to electrophotographic color printing is limited by the lower absorption of radiation of color toner compared with black toner and different absorption of radiation of different colored toner. The commercial application of the radiant fusing technologies for color toner is limited to the wavelength range of 4μm - 10μm. Due to low energy density of the radiation in that wavelength range the process speed is relatively low.It is desirable to use these technologies for higher speeds as well. It is - among others and compared with hot roller fusing technology - expected to be more reliable, avoids fusing oil and has lower costs.We have evaluated the use of high intensity continuous and flashed radiation for color independent radiant fusing and have chosen the UV range from 200nm – 380nm (UV-C – UV-A) of the spectrum that combines high intensity and low color dependency.Our work is explained in detail like matching of emission spectra of lamps with absorption spectra of the toners by toner means and fuser modifications, process and material optimization and finally the potential of the technologies for future toner based high speed color production printers is discussed.
Domingo Rohde, Detlef Schulze-Hagenest, "Color Radiant Fusing with Continuous and Flash Radiation" in Proc. IS&T Int'l Conf. on Digital Printing Technologies (NIP18), 2002, pp 58 - 64, https://doi.org/10.2352/ISSN.2169-4451.2002.18.1.art00016_1