JPH0441665B2 - - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION FIELD OF INDUSTRIAL APPLICATION The present invention relates to a method of thermal transfer recording using a thermal recording head or the like, and to an improvement of a recording apparatus therefor.

Configuration of conventional example and its problems Using a recording medium and a transfer body having a layer of recording material to be transferred to the medium on one side of the base,
With this recording material layer and the recording medium in pressure contact, the temperature of the recording material layer is selectively raised by a heating means to selectively transfer the recording material to the recording medium to obtain a record. The method is known.

In this type of transfer recording, the melting point of a part of the constituent materials of the recording material layer is selected to be lower than the heating temperature, and the material is transferred to the recording medium by melting. A typical recording device consists of a recording material containing a colorant made of pigment and a low melting point binder, etc.
A so-called wax-type transfer sheet is used as a transfer body, which is coated on the surface of a heat-resistant base sheet such as thin capacitor paper or polyethylene terephthalate sheet, and a resistance heating element whose heat generation is electrically controlled is installed on the back side of this transfer sheet. A thermal recording head with a heat generating element is pressed into contact with the recording material, and the heat generated by the heating element selectively melts the binder through the base sheet, and transfers and adheres the recording material to a recording medium such as paper. There is a thermal melt transfer recording device that records images and the like.

In this type of recording device, the temperature of the recording material layer is raised from the back side of the substrate, so the melting of the recording material starts from the contact interface on the substrate side, and it is not until the recording medium side is melted that the melted recording material appears on the surface of the recording medium. The state is such that it can be transferred and recorded. Therefore, it is suitable for binary density recording that does not have halftones because it is transferred discontinuously with a threshold value due to external heat energy exceeding a certain value, but continuous transfer corresponding to the amount of heat energy applied is suitable. This involves the essential problem that it is difficult to record with halftones at a certain recording density.

Therefore, in order to cope with the current expanding multi-tone recording applications, conventional thermal melt transfer recording devices
Digital gradation processing methods that perform multi-gradation recording using binary recording densities, such as the density pattern method and the dither method, are being considered.

However, adopting this type of gradation processing method requires a complicated signal processing circuit, making the recording apparatus expensive. However, the resolution and recording speed decrease in inverse proportion to the number of binary density recording dots included in the dithered matrix.

At the same time, since the density is displayed using the number of dots in units of dot density, the displayed gradations are discontinuous digital, although there are multiple gradations, and continuous analog gradation display is impossible.

In addition, in conventional thermal melt transfer recording devices, the principle of melt transfer is achieved by electrically controlling the heat generated by a resistive heating element, which results in low recording sensitivity, high power consumption, and makes high-speed recording difficult. However, improvement of this essential drawback is currently a major research topic.

Purpose of the Invention The present invention solves the essential difficulties in the recording method based on the principle of thermal melt transfer as described above, enables image recording with continuous gradations, and achieves the same input energy compared to conventional devices. The object of the present invention is to provide a recording method and a recording apparatus that can perform transfer recording with higher density, or faster transfer recording with lower power consumption for equal density recording.

Composition of the Invention The recording method according to the present invention includes a recording medium, a transfer body having a recording material that is solid at room temperature on one side of a substrate, and a recording material having a melting point lower than the melting transfer temperature of the recording material and having a configuration of the recording material. Contacting the recording material or recording medium with the solvent material in a liquid state by using a solvent material that dissolves at least one of the components and whose solubility increases as the temperature rises;
After positioning, the recording material is pressed against the recording medium with this solvent material interposed, and the temperature of the recording material is selectively controlled for writing, and the transfer body is further peeled from the recording medium to perform recording on the recording medium. It is characterized by selectively transferring and recording materials.

Selective heating writing control (temperature raising recording control for short) of the recording material is based on heat conduction from the substrate side or the recording medium side, light energy such as infrared rays or laser beams, thermal recording head, etc. This is done using external incident energy.

In principle, the present invention differs from the conventional thermal melt transfer recording method in that a solvent material is brought into contact with a recording material part in a liquid state that is controlled for temperature elevation recording, and at least one component constituting the recording material is heated by the solvent. It is heated and melted to impart a transfer recording function to the recording material.

The present invention obtains a continuous change in the amount of recording material dissolved by utilizing the so-called positive temperature solubility characteristic in which the solubility of the recording material in the solvent material increases with temperature. Further, transfer recording can also be performed by also using the melt transfer characteristics of a binder constituting a conventional recording material.

Further, the present invention can be easily realized by simply adding a means for supplying a solvent material to a recording apparatus that implements a conventional thermal melt transfer recording method.

Note that the solvent material is one that has already formed a fluid liquid state in the temperature raising writing control process using incident energy, and that when it comes into contact with the heated recording material, it dissolves at least one component constituting the recording material. However, it does not necessarily need to be liquid at room temperature, but may be solid, that is, solid.

Further, the solvent material may be composed of a single material or a plurality of materials.

Furthermore, as long as it exhibits fluidity under the above-mentioned elevated temperature conditions, it is preferable that it is completely liquid, but it is not necessarily limited to this, and even if it is a mixed material that contains solid materials, it may still be in the form of a sol or gel. It's okay if it's hot.

In addition, the recording material constitutes a colored material in the normal use of ink recording of characters, images, etc., but a non-colored material can also be used for other special recording as necessary.

Description of examples Examples of the present invention will be described below.

The recording material that is solid at room temperature in the present invention includes:
For example, when recording text, images, etc. in color,
Any of a dye-only type, a dye-binder type, a pigment-binder type, and a dye/pigment mixed-binder type can be used. Of course, the dye and pigment as colorants and the binder may each contain a plurality of materials, and the binder itself may contain a surfactant, a plasticizer, a softener, and other auxiliary agents. That is, in the recording material, the binder is interpreted as a material other than the colorant.

In these four ink types, it is desirable that both the dye and the binder are all soluble in the liquid solvent material, but this is not necessarily the case; at least one component of the constituent material is in the liquid state. It is sufficient that the solubility (including compatibility) of the solvent material increases as the temperature increases.

In other words, in a dye-only type, part of the dye is part of the dye, in a dye-binder type, part of at least one of the dye or binder is part of the dye, in a pigment-binder type, part of the binder is part of the dye, and in a dye/pigment-binder type, part of the binder is part of the dye. Alternatively, at least one part of the binder may be configured such that its solubility in a liquid solvent material increases as the temperature increases. The reason for this is that by dissolving one component of the recording material, transferability to the recording medium is imparted, making it possible to transfer and adhere the recording material to the recording medium.

As the colorant dye, when the solvent material in liquid state is water-based, water-soluble dyes such as acidic, basic, direct dyes, etc. are used, and when the solvent material in liquid state is oil-based, oil-soluble dyes ( Solvent dye) is used. The dye may be in powder, paste, or liquid form; however, in order to increase its solubility in liquid solvent materials, paste or liquid dyes may be used.

For example, if the dye is in a liquid state (liquiddye), and the solvent material contains alcohol, glycol ether, ketone, ester, or aromatic hydrocarbon, Morefast Liquid dye is a product name of Morton Chemical Company. ,
In addition, when the solvent material is gasoline, naphtha, kerosene, or water-insoluble aliphatic or aromatic solvents, the same company's Automate Liquid dye is a preferable material.

As the colorant pigment, any organic pigment or inorganic pigment used in conventional melt-type transfer sheets or ordinary paints and printing inks can be used.

As the binder material constituting the recording material, most binder materials used in ordinary paints, offset inks, and gravure inks can be used. However,
When coloring materials are applied and stored on a sheet-like substrate in advance and used as needed, those that change and harden due to air, moisture, light, etc., or those that harden naturally, should be used with liquid solvent materials. Since thermal melting may become impossible, it is necessary to select a so-called reversible melting material that does not undergo deterioration and hardening or spontaneous hardening.

When the solvent material is water-based such as water, alcohol, or glycol, the binder is preferably a water-based paint resin such as alkyd resin, oil-free alkyd resin, epoxy ester, acrylic resin, melamine resin, etc., and the trade name is Dainippon Ink. These include Watersol from Kagaku Kogyo Co., Ltd.

When the recording solvent is non-aqueous, the reversibly dissolving binder is preferably a solid resin, such as 100% carbonic acid resin, carbonic acid resin modified with natural resin such as pine resin, maleic acid resin modified with natural resin, pentaerythritol resin modified with natural resin. etc. (for example, Dainippon Ink & Chemicals Co., Ltd., trade name: Betsukasite), petroleum resins (for example, Nippon Petrochemicals Co., Ltd., trade name: Nisseki Neobolymer), nitrocellulose, cellulose acetate, polyamide, styrene resin, etc. can be used.

The binder can also be a hot melt material with a melting point of about 60 to 90°C, such as carnauba wax, oxidized wax, paraffin wax, ester wax, etc., as used in conventional thermal melt transfer recording. It can also be configured. In this case as well, the colorant is not limited to a pigment, but may be a dye or a mixture of a pigment and a dye, and the binder may contain a softener or other additives as required.

The thickness of the substrate on which the recording material is applied must be adjusted to take into account misalignment during thermal melt transfer and mechanical strength.
A heat-resistant substrate such as a plastic film of about 3.5 to 15 μm, a sheet-like substrate such as cellulose fiber paper or plastic fiber paper, or a roll-shaped endless structure substrate with both ends of these sheets connected is used.

These substrates are required to have good conductivity and transparency to incident energy such as heat and radiant energy, have a high melting point that is at least higher than the heating temperature of the recording material, and have a solvent material in a liquid state. Compared to the recording medium, the so-called so-called The basic material can be freely selected and may be non-porous or porous as long as it satisfies these conditions such as low ink receptivity.

Considering these conditions, capacitor paper, glassine paper, polyester (PET),
Films such as polyimide and cellophane are used.

The recording material is applied to a substrate in the form of so-called liquid ink using a suitable solvent, or by heating and melting using a hot melt material as a binder, to form a sheet-like transfer body.

In this case, when the transfer body is used for multiple transfer recordings, the recording material can be applied to and impregnated onto a porous sheet-like substrate or a sheet-like substrate whose surface is porous.

In addition, when the transfer body is to be disposable, a sheet-like base coated with a recording material is used, and when the base is made into a roll-like endless structure, a used base is used prior to thermal melt transfer recording. The surface can be reapplied with the recording material described above and used repeatedly.

Note that the adhesion strength of the recording material to the substrate surface or the heat-resistant solubility of the substrate to the solvent material can be improved by coating or laminating another synthetic resin on the substrate surface on which the recording material is applied and installed.

In addition, in order to improve the adhesive strength of the recording material, expand the contact area of the recording material with the solvent material, and improve the heat dissolution characteristics, for example, corona treatment is applied to the surface of the film-like substrate, or sandblasting is performed. As a result, a rough surface having fine irregularities (for example, a depth of about 1 to 5 μm) can be formed on the surface of the base film.

In addition, in order to prevent the recording material from spontaneously peeling off from the substrate surface, other binders that do not dissolve in the solvent material and have excellent adhesion to the substrate surface may be mixed in, or fine irregularities ( For example 1
In order to improve the heat-dissolving properties by imparting a heat-dissolving property of about 5μ), in addition to a binder that is heat-soluble in the solvent material, a second binder that is incompatible with this binder is mixed in a solution state. , solid powders can be mixed.

Such roughening of the substrate surface and the recording material surface increases the contact area of the recording material with the solvent material, and at the same time, the solvent material is accommodated in a liquid state in the unevenness of the surface of the recording material, resulting in heat generation. The amount of dissolution is increased, and the transfer recording density can be significantly improved.

The amount of recording material deposited on the transfer body is desirably selected to be, for example, about 1 to 15 μm in terms of thickness in a dry state. If this thickness is too small, the recording density cannot be achieved due to insufficient amount of colorant being thermally melted and transferred to the recording medium, and if it is too thick, the temperature rise with respect to the incident energy is inefficient and the amount of thermally melted is insufficient. transfer recording of recording materials may become difficult.

In multi-gradation recording, full-color recording, etc., it is necessary for recording materials to be faithfully transferred by thermal melting in response to rising temperatures. Dye-binder type recording materials which are dissolved in a solvent material in liquid form may also be used. In addition, if weather resistance or bleed resistance is required, pigment-binder type or dye-
A pigment blend-binder type recording material configuration is recommended.

The above configuration can be similarly applied to the case where thermal melt transfer recording and thermal melt transfer recording in which the binder is melted by heating writing control using incident energy are used together.

In the colorant-binder type recording material configuration,
The mixing weight ratio of the dye/pigment as the coloring agent and the binder is preferably selected within the range of usually 1:50 to 1:1. Too little colorant will cause the recorded reflection density to be too low, and too much colorant will cause the recorded image to lack gloss and deteriorate weather resistance due to a relative lack of binder.

The recording medium may be of any material, such as plastic film, ordinary recording paper, printing paper, etc., as long as it is not significantly dissolved by the liquid solvent material. If the recording medium is made of paper,
Either plain paper or coated paper can be selected as appropriate.

The solvent material is applied to or impregnated onto either or both of the recording material and the transfer body surface.

The conditions required for the solvent material are to be in a fluid liquid state under the rising temperature of the surface of the recording material due to the incident energy, and to dissolve one component of the single or multiple constituent materials that make up the recording material. Moreover, it has a positive thermal solubility property in which its solubility increases with increasing temperature. In this case, if the solvent material boils due to temperature rise of the recording material, the quality of the transferred recorded image may be significantly reduced. Therefore, the maximum heating temperature of the recording material is lower than the boiling point of the solvent material, The boiling point is preferably selected to be higher than the maximum temperature rise of the surface of the recording material in contact with the recording material. On the other hand, if transfer recording by thermal melting of the recording material is also used, the boiling point of the solvent material is selected to be higher than the melting point of the binder, that is, the thermal melting transfer temperature of the recording material, so that the heat of vaporization of the solvent material does not interfere with thermal melting. There is a need.

As described above, the solvent material can be appropriately selected from either a single material or a mixture of a plurality of materials, regardless of whether it is aqueous or non-aqueous, depending on the relationship with the binder material and dye that constitute the recording material.

The melting point can be appropriately selected within a range that has a maximum value of the lowest surface temperature of the recording material when selectively temperature-increasing writing is controlled by incident energy. Therefore, as long as this condition is satisfied, solid waxes such as solid paraffin, carnauba wax, oxidized wax, ester wax, petroleum resin, etc. that are solid at room temperature (for example, about 0°C to 35°C), and organic Hot melt materials such as resins can also be used. However, when thermal melt transfer is also used, the melting point of the solvent material is selected to be lower than the melting point of the binder of the recording material, that is, the thermal melt transfer temperature.

The solvent material should be kept at room temperature (for example, 0°C
It is convenient to use materials that are liquid at temperatures of up to 35°C.

Even if the solvent material is solid at room temperature, it is desirable to be transparent in order to prevent color changes in the transferred recorded image, but if the material evaporates or volatilizes at room temperature, it does not necessarily have to be colorless. do not have.

When the solvent material is liquid at room temperature, if its vapor pressure is too high, its evaporation will shorten the period from the application process of the solvent material, through the hot melt transfer process, and the process of peeling the transfer body and recording medium. Control becomes difficult. On the other hand, if the vapor pressure is too low, the recording medium recorded by hot melt transfer will not dry forever.
The resolution of recorded images may decrease or become sticky.

Therefore, taking these into consideration, it is desirable to select the boiling point of the solvent material under atmospheric pressure (760 mmHg), for example, from a minimum of 60°C to a maximum of about 250°C, preferably within the range of 90 to 200°C. Of course, as described above, the minimum value of the boiling point is selected to be higher than the melting temperature when the thermal melting property is also utilized.

From a recording medium that has been subjected to thermal melt transfer recording, the remaining solvent material may be removed by heating at an appropriate temperature from at least one or both of the front and back sides of the recording medium, or by blowing air as necessary. Can be evaporated. This prevents recording bleeding caused by the diffusion of the transferred recording material,
This method is also recommended from a preservation perspective.

The solvent material is solid at room temperature (e.g. 0°C to 35°C) or at a low operating temperature (e.g. 0°C or lower),
When used by coating or impregnating the surface of a recording material or recording medium prior to temperature raising writing control, this solvent material must be used within a range that does not significantly heat-dissolve the recording material in the non-heated area during temperature raising writing control. , is applied in a liquid state by a heated roller or the like whose temperature is controlled above its melting point, and a means for maintaining this molten liquid state is provided for temperature-rising recording, thermal melt transfer, and transfer of the transfer body and recording medium. Peeling is performed.

However, care must be taken when coating or impregnating the surface of the recording material with a hot melt or solution of a solvent material, since the coating or impregnating process dissolves the recording material and tends to cause so-called fog transfer recording. Therefore, in order to prevent this, it is convenient to apply or impregnate the recording medium.

In known thermal recording heads, various semiconductor elements such as latch circuits and drivers are mounted.
The upper limit rated temperature of the main body is, for example, about 80°C.

Therefore, the melting point of the solid solvent material is selected to be at least below this upper limit rated temperature of 80°C. However, the recording signal power of up to 1W per single element is usually applied to the heating resistive element, and the resistive heating element is
The temperature rises to over 300℃. This power causes a temperature rise in the recording head body of about 20° C. with normal thermal diffusion cooling dimensions. Therefore, the temperature of the recording head body during continuous operation must be kept to a maximum of about 60° C. when not recording. At this temperature, solvent materials that are solid at room temperature
Must already be in a molten state.

Therefore, the melting point of solid solvent materials is 35
The recommended range is 45°C to 55°C, preferably 45°C to 55°C. Of course, even in these cases, when thermal melt transfer is also used, the melting point of the solid solvent material is determined by the melt transfer temperature of the recording material (e.g. 60°C).
~90℃).

In general, the temperature of the solvent material, including this temperature range, has a direct effect on the dissolved transfer concentration, so temperature control is important.

Such temperature control of the solvent material can be carried out by, for example, bringing a temperature control roller into contact with the back surface of the recording medium or the surface facing the recording material, or using a thermal recording head in temperature-raising recording control. The temperature of the recording head body is controlled, or the temperature of the solvent material in contact with it via the transfer body is controlled using the temperature of the recording head body, or the metal, rubber, or any of these materials is used to press the recording medium against the surface of the recording material. Temperature control can be performed on a recording platen consisting of a combination of these, or by appropriately combining one or more of these. Among these methods, the method of controlling the temperature of a solvent material that is solid at room temperature or liquid at room temperature from a recording platen through a recording medium is the easiest and recommended method in terms of device configuration.

As mentioned above, if the melting point of the solid solvent material is selected to be as low as 45°C to 55°C in order to use a thermal recording head, bleeding of recorded images and sticking of the recording medium may occur during long-term storage. .

To solve this problem, a linear or strip-shaped heating resistor element is provided on the surface of the recording medium opposite to the resistive heating element array of the thermal recording head and on the opposite side to the transfer body, and the heater element is intermittently synchronized with the main scanning recording signal. If the solvent material is melted by heating the recording head locally or continuously, the heated area is limited, so the effect of this heating on the entire recording head is reduced, and the melting point of the solvent material can be raised to 60°C or higher. You can choose high. In this case, it goes without saying that the melting temperature of the recording material should be selected higher than this, and that thermal melt transfer recording will be the main method, and the melting point of the solvent material should be selected lower than the heating temperature of the resistance heating element of the recording head. The thermal dissolution characteristics of the recording material are appropriately selected so that the amount of thermal dissolution of the solvent material in the non-heated part of the recording material at the melting point temperature does not cause fog transfer recording, or the solvent material in a liquid state is At least one consideration is given to selecting a short period of time from when the recording medium and the transfer body come into contact with each other to when the recording medium and the transfer body are separated from each other.

The conditions to keep in mind are summarized below.

(a) The solvent material does not come into contact with the recording material or through the surface of the transfer body, at least during selective heating writing control of the recording material by incident energy or when this heating is not cooled, or both. A pressure contact condition is applied.

(b) The solvent material is also applied to or impregnated into either or both of the recording material or the surface of the recording medium opposite the recording material surface during the recording process.

Therefore, when the solvent material is placed only on the recording medium side, the solvent material is brought into contact with or impregnated into the recording material from the recording medium side only by contact and pressure between the recording medium and the recording material (i.e., the transfer body). Ru.

Applying or impregnating the recording medium with a solvent material is
When the recording medium is non-porous, the solvent material is applied to the recording medium surface located on the recording material side, but when the recording medium is porous, the solvent material is applied not only to the recording medium side, but also to the recording medium surface located on the recording material side. The recording medium can be impregnated with the recording solvent by applying it to the opposite surface and permeating the recording material side.

(c) The recording material surface of the transfer member is in contact with the recording medium surface for a period necessary for the recording material thermally melted by the solvent material in (a) above to be transferred to the recording medium surface. After the pressure contact state is maintained, the recording medium and the transfer body are separated.

(d) In the non-heating part during the selective heating process using incident energy, the recording material is not melted and transferred to the recording medium during the period leading to the separation process between the recording medium and the transfer body. , or at least subject to process constraints including the solvent material so that the amount of transfer is negligibly small compared to the temperature rising section.

Without this restriction, the recording material is transferred to the recording medium even in the non-heated portion, causing so-called fog, which deteriorates the quality of the recorded image.

In order to prevent this, the solvent material should be selected so that the solubility of the recording material in the solvent material at the temperature of the non-heated part is extremely low or zero. Alternatively, in terms of process, during the period from the contact of the solvent material to the recording material to the completion of the peeling process between the recording medium and the transfer body, the amount of the recording material dissolved in the solvent material is within a short period of time that is less than the level that impairs the quality of the recorded image. In this period, the entire dissolution transfer recording process is completed. From the viewpoint of preventing paper peeling and recording material peeling, the peeling process is preferably performed during a period when the solvent material does not lose its liquid state or fluidity.

The recording method and recording apparatus according to the present invention are implemented by appropriately combining conditions (a) to (d) described above.

Among these various process combinations, the following should be kept in mind in order to prevent fog transfer in non-heated areas and obtain good recorded images.

If the solvent material is solid at room temperature, the focus is on preventing fog caused by dissolution of the recording material due to temperature changes during the coating process, and the method is to apply or impregnate the recording medium rather than the recording material surface. It is recommended that you do so.

When coating or impregnating a solvent material that is liquid at room temperature, at least the time interval for coating or impregnating the surface of the recording material should be kept as short as possible prior to the step of controlling the temperature increase of the recording material using incident energy. , carried out immediately before the temperature raising process.

In particular, in order to prevent fog transfer and to perform good transfer recording of recorded images, it is desirable to apply and impregnate the solvent material only on the recording medium. As long as the solvent material does not evaporate more than necessary, this coating and impregnation process can be carried out even immediately before the temperature raising process.
It is also possible to proceed further, which is the recommended method.

In any of the above methods, the contacting and pressure-welding process between the recording material surface and the recording medium is preferably carried out immediately before the temperature increase control process within the time range in which the required contact and impregnation of the solvent material onto the recording material surface is carried out. This contacting and press-welding process is continued to the above-mentioned peeling process through a temperature increase control process.

During this contact or pressure contact step, the above-described thermal melt transfer of the recording material onto the surface of the recording medium and further heat melt transfer recording are performed.

In the recording method and recording apparatus according to the present invention, when uniform thermal melting transfer recording is performed on a recording medium such as a recording paper or a plastic sheet, it is necessary to bring the solvent material into contact with the recording material and heat-dissolve it. Contact or pressure must be maintained for a constant period of time.

From this point of view, it is possible to perform surface-sequential temperature-raising writing control using incident energy on a transfer body that is held under pressure by a recording medium through a solvent material;
Alternatively, the recording material is scanned and heated with incident energy in a direction substantially perpendicular to the so-called paper feeding direction (i.e., sub-scanning direction) of the transfer body and thus the recording medium (i.e., in the main scanning direction), for example. It is preferable either to control the recording head, or to arrange a plurality of recording head elements in a width corresponding to the width of the surface of the transfer member, and control each element by time-division or parallel line-sequential scanning and heating writing.

In the above, the movement of the transfer body and the recording medium in the sub-scanning direction is synchronized with the scanning temperature increase writing control period in the main scanning direction by incident energy,
It may move intermittently or continuously.

The recording medium may be non-porous or porous, such as plastic film or recording paper.

However, in order to perform high-sensitivity and good gradation recording by thermal dissolution, it is necessary to control the amount of solvent material that is located between the recording material and the recording medium or that can come into contact with the recording material, and the overall amount of the recording medium containing the solvent material. It is necessary to consider the amount of heat dissolution and specific heat.

For example, when the amount of solvent material is small, the absolute value of the amount of recording material that can be heat-dissolved is small at low temperatures, and when combined with heat-melting transfer, high density transfer is achieved at high temperatures.
The recording characteristics are closer to the high temperature side, exhibiting transfer recording characteristics with a narrow latitude and high gamma value.

On the other hand, if the amount of solvent material is appropriate, the recording material will thermally melt corresponding to the temperature even in a low temperature range, and its absolute amount can be increased. As a result, the latitude is wide and good gradation recording characteristics with low gamma can be obtained.

However, if there is too much solvent material, the overall heat capacity including the recording medium will become too large. Therefore, it becomes difficult to increase the temperature of the solvent material by temperature increase record control.
As the amount of dissolution becomes insufficient, it becomes difficult to perform high-density transfer recording even though the latitude is wide and gamma is low.

The following methods are effective for these improvements.
When the recording medium is non-porous such as plastic film, the film surface is dotted with a density finer than the recording dot density (usually 4 to 16 dots/mm), and a depth of 1 to 1 mm is formed by sandplasting or embossing. A fine unevenness of about 10 μm is provided, or a matte coat treatment containing calcium carbonate powder or the like is applied to the film surface, which has the effect of securing the solvent material.

On the other hand, when a porous material such as recording paper is used as a recording medium, excessive solvent material may be impregnated with the recording paper, or hot melted recording material may penetrate deep into the recording paper, lowering the transferred recording density, or even causing In order to prevent solvent materials and heat-melting recording materials from permeating to the back side, starch, polyvinyl alcohol resin, etc. are applied to the back side of the recording medium to make it substantially impermeable to the solvent material, or Alternatively, a so-called oil barrier that repels solvent materials, such as a fluororesin or a fluorine-based surfactant, is applied and impregnated as a permeation prevention agent on the back side of the recording medium to prevent the permeation of the solvent material, and the amount and depth of the impregnation can be adjusted. It is preferable to adjust.

These recording media can be applied to any of the cases of coating or impregnation with a solvent material in the form of a liquid at room temperature or a solid at room temperature, and is an effective method.

In the recording method and recording apparatus according to the present invention, by changing the color of the recording material on the transfer body, images of different colors can be transferred and recorded using a single recording head or a plurality of recording heads.

Furthermore, multicolor recording can be performed by sequentially overlapping recording materials of a plurality of different colors.

In this case, a full-color image can be recorded by using four primary colors (cyan, magenta, yellow, and black) and sequentially transferring and recording them using one or more recording heads.

These recording materials of different colors can be placed periodically on the same sheet-like transfer body, or each primary color recording material can be placed on a so-called endless roll-like transfer body with both ends of the sheet-like transfer body tied together. It may be applied periodically to the designated positions.

In these cases, faithful color reproduction requires thermal melt transfer of recording materials of precisely different primary colors at defined positions.

This effective means includes, within the step of thermally melting transferring the first color recording material to the recording medium in a line-sequential manner,
A marker is transferred and recorded on the edge of the recording medium in response to the recording signal voltage, and this marker is photoelectrically detected for thermal melt transfer of the second and subsequent color recording materials.
This can be easily achieved by providing means for detecting and correcting the position to be subjected to thermal melt transfer using this electrical signal.

Hereinafter, specific embodiments of the recording method and recording apparatus according to the present invention based on the above configuration will be described using drawings.

FIG. 1 is a cross-sectional structure of an embodiment of the recording method and recording apparatus according to the present invention, and shows the recording principle.

In the figure, reference numeral 100 denotes a transfer body in which a colored layered recording material 120 is coated on the surface of a sheet-like base 110, and a recording medium 300 is pressed onto this with a liquid solvent material 200 interposed therebetween.

Reference numeral 401 indicates an incident energy source 411 that generates and controls incident energy 411 for selectively heating and controlling the recording material and also the solvent material through the substrate 110 by using a thermal recording head device, a carbon dioxide laser device, thermal conduction, radiant energy, or the like. It is an energy generation control device.

This figure illustrates the temperature raising writing process using incident energy 411.

FIG. 2 shows an example of the solubility curve of the components of the recording material with respect to the solvent material in the liquid state in the recording method and recording apparatus according to the present invention.

In the figure, the horizontal axis represents one component of the recording material 120 and the liquid solvent material 20 in contact with it.
The temperature T is 0, and the vertical axis indicates the saturation solubility of the recording material in the solvent material in a liquid state.

In the present invention, the materials are selected so that the solubility S increases with respect to the temperature T, as shown in the characteristics a, b, and c in the figure.

Therefore, in FIG. 1, the incident energy 411
In the area where the amount of energy is added, the temperature of the liquid solvent material 200 in contact with the recording material 120 and the recording material surface 121 is selectively controlled to increase in temperature corresponding to this amount of energy, and the recording material 120 itself or The components are thermally melted to form a hot-melt recording material 130 in the form of a solution or suspension that has a transfer recording function. This hot melt recording material 13
The amount of zero is an increasing function of the intensity of the incident energy 411 or its pulse width.

Therefore, in this state where the solvent material 200 is in a liquid state,
When the pressed recording medium 300 is peeled off from the transfer body 100, the colored recording material 130 is transferred and recorded on the recording medium surface 301 at a density corresponding to the intensity or pulse width of the incident energy 411.

In this case, when a linear solubility curve is shown as characteristic a in Fig. 2, the gamma value is close to 1,
When a superlinear solubility curve is shown as in characteristic b, the gamma value is greater than 1.On the other hand, when a sublinear solubility curve is shown as in characteristic c, the gamma value is smaller than 1 and the material 120,
By selecting No. 200, any of the characteristics can be obtained, and unlike the conventional transfer recording method using thermal melting, continuous gradation recording can be performed.

Incidentally, when the temperature of the recording material surface 121 and the liquid solvent material 200 in contact with it in the non-heated part where the incident energy 411 is not applied is _T0 , the saturated solubility _S0 is large as shown in FIG. If so, the recording material 120 is melted and transferred to the recording medium surface 301 even in the non-temperature raised area, although at a low concentration, resulting in so-called fog transfer. In order to prevent this fog transfer, either the materials 120 and 200 are selected so that the solubility S ₀ is extremely small or zero, or the liquid solvent material 200 is brought into contact with the recording material surface 121 and then the incident energy 411 This can be avoided by selecting the period until the recording medium 300 is peeled off from the transfer body 100 through the selective temperature increase control step to be shorter than the time until the solubility corresponding to fog transfer, which is an obstacle, is reached.

[Configuration Example 1] For example, the recording material 120 may be magenta, cyan,
The melting temperature is 20% by weight of pigment as a coloring agent such as yellow or black, 20% by weight of carnauba wax or ester wax as a binder agent, and 20% by weight of oil and other additives as a softener. In the case of a so-called pigment-hot melt binder type recording material for thermal melt transfer recording with a layer thickness of about 70°C and about 4μ, the solvent material 200 is trichlorethylene (boiling point 87°C, melting point -86°C) or xylene (boiling point 138~
144° C.), at a temperature T=27° C., if the contact time to the recording material 120 is 2 seconds or less, almost no melting occurs and fog transfer does not occur. Valid hot melt transfer recording begins at T>40°C.

[Configuration Example 2] In addition, as the recording material 120, the colorant is, for example, xanthene-based CISolvent Red 49,
CISolvent Blue 25, a phthalocyanate, CISolvent Yellow 16, a monoazo, and CI a disazo.
Contains 25% by weight of Solvent Black 3 and 75% by weight of a natural resin-modified maleic acid resin with a melting point of about 90°C (for example, Betsukasite F-266 from Dainippon Ink Chemical Co., Ltd.).
When using magenta, cyan, yellow, and black dye-binder type products each having a thickness of about 2 to 10 μm, use liquid polyethylene glycol (for example, Kanto Kagaku Co., Ltd.'s Polyethylene Glycol +200).
For the liquid medium material 200 consisting of
℃ for 2 seconds, almost no melting occurs and fog transfer can be prevented, and when the temperature rises above 50℃, high-density heat-melting transfer can be performed.

[Configuration Example 3] In addition, the binder material is, for example, a nitrocellulose type, and 14 to 20% pigment by weight is added to 150%.
Pigment-binder type gravure printing colored inks with a softening point of ℃ or higher, such as Sakata Shokai's NA-N370 (magenta color) and NA-N800 for G cellophane.
(cyan color), NA−N26 (yellow color), NA−
N1000 (black) is a solvent material such as cyclohexanone (boiling point 155
℃, melting point -45℃), when contacting for 2 seconds at room temperature 27℃, fog transfer was negligible in the amount of dissolution, and 50~
At temperatures above 70°C, high-density thermal melt transfer can be performed.

[Configuration example 4] The binder material is, for example, oxide wax, for example, polyethylene glycol with an average molecular weight of 19,000 (softening point of about 63°C) (for example, Nippon Oil & Fat Industries Co., Ltd.).
PEG+20000), magenta, cyan, yellow,
When the solvent material 200 is water, the recording material 120 containing black pigments in an amount of 14 to 20% by weight can be stored at room temperature.
At 27°C and a contact time of 2 seconds, there is almost no melting and fog transfer does not occur, and hot melt transfer can be performed at 45°C or higher.

[Configuration Example 5] The binder material is, for example, an aliphatic hydrocarbon resin with an average molecular weight of 1200 and a softening point of 100°C (for example, Mitsui Petrochemical Co., Ltd.'s Hiretsu G-100X), magenta,
14-20% by weight of cyan, yellow, and black pigments each
The mixed recording material 120 is solid paraffin, which is solid at room temperature and has a melting point of 44 to 46°C, for example, as the solvent material 20.
When the temperature is 0, at 50°C, where solid paraffin is liquefied, it hardly dissolves with a contact time of 2 seconds, and thermal melt transfer recording is possible at 70°C or higher.

Note that the binder material is a solid paraffin having a melting point higher than that of the solvent material 200, for example, a melting point of 66 to 70°C,
High softening point microcrystalline wax (e.g. Nippon Seirosha Hi-Mic-+2095 (softening point 96℃)
By replacing it with Esmac+180 (softening point: 84°C) from Etsuo Oil Co., Ltd., thermal melt transfer recording can be performed with solid paraffin, which is the solvent material 200, in a liquefied state.

These recording materials 120 have a thickness of 3.5μ to 15μ
The substrate 110 is made of a heat-resistant transparent film such as polyethylene terephthalate (PFT), cellophane, or biaxially oriented polyvinyl alcohol, or a heat-resistant translucent paper such as capacitor paper or glassine paper.

In this way, the transfer body 100 and the recording medium 300 are pressed and fixed in FIG. A large number of near-infrared light-emitting diode elements such as those are arranged in a line, and optically linear non-contact focusing scanning is performed, or an infrared laser beam such as a carbon dioxide laser is connected to a polygon mirror or an electrical element. The recording material 120 and the solvent material 200 are subjected to non-contact scanning with the beam through the recording material 120 and the solvent material 200 in a plane-sequential manner within the time required to cause the fog transfer.
When contact is made with the recording material 120 of 0 and the peeling is completed, characters, figures,
A gradation image is recorded on the recording medium surface 301.

Alternatively, in the above, the solvent material 120 is applied to either or both of the substrate surface 112 or the recording medium surface 301 while moving the transfer body 100 and the recording medium 300 in the same direction and at the same speed, and immediately after that, the transfer body 100 and the recording medium 300 are moved in the same direction and at the same speed. 100 and the recording medium 300 are brought into pressure contact with each other, and the incident energy 411 consisting of the above-mentioned thermal conduction or radiant energy is used to control heating writing in a line-sequential or beam-scanning manner in a direction perpendicular to the direction of movement of these, and before fog transfer occurs. When the transfer body 100 and the recording medium 300 are separated, characters, figures, and gradation images can be thermally melted and transferred in a line-sequential manner.

In the recording method and recording apparatus according to the present invention, since the principle is thermal melt transfer recording, the recording material 120
It is only necessary to be able to control the temperature increase of the contact interface of the solvent material 200, and to perform thermal melt transfer in response to the temperature increase,
As in the conventional thermofusion recording method, the incident energy 4
It is essentially different from that which is transferred only after the large heat of fusion is supplied by 11.

Therefore, as long as temperature increase control is possible, the incident energy generating device 4 as illustrated in FIG.
01 is installed on the back side of the recording medium 300 like 402, and incident energy 412 consisting of thermal energy or radiant energy such as a light beam is applied to the recording medium 300.
Even if 0 is supplied through conduction or transmission, the heat-melting recording material 130 can be transferred and recorded on the recording medium surface 301.

For example, in the figure, when the recording medium 300 is a transparent plastic film, the incident energy 41
2 is the incident energy 411 described earlier.
Similarly, thermal transfer can be performed using light energy, and slide films and film originals for overhead projectors can be easily created. In addition, in the case of heat-resistant translucent or opaque plastic film or recording paper, contact thermal recording can be performed on the back surface of the recording medium using a thermal recording head.

FIG. 3 is a cross-sectional structural diagram showing another embodiment of the recording method and recording apparatus according to the present invention.

The transfer body 100 and the recording paper 300 as a recording medium are
A recording platen 500 made of rubber that is intermittently rotated by a synchronous motor (not shown) is pressed into contact with a known thermal recording head 403, and a driving power source 42 is used.
The recording platen 50 synchronizes with the line-sequential temperature increase writing by the head 403 corresponding to the recording signal from 0.
By rotation as shown by the arrow 501 of 0, the paper is fed at the same speed.

520 is a transfer sheet roll, 540 is a transfer sheet take-up roll, 560 is a recording paper roll, 58
0 is a recording paper take-up roll.

700 is a solvent material container that accommodates the solvent material 200 and a solvent material coater 600 that applies the solvent material to the recording medium surface 301. The coater 600 is movable, and when it moves in the direction of an arrow 602, the solvent material 200 is applied to the recording medium surface 301 as shown in the figure.
If it moves as indicated by the arrow 601, it will move away from the surface 301 and will not be coated.

FIG. 4 shows a cross-sectional structure a and a planar structure b showing an example of the known thermal recording head 403 used in FIG.

10 is an alumina substrate having a glass glaze layer on its surface, 20 is Ta provided on its surface,
Ni-Cr alloy, tantalum nitride (Ta ₂ N) Si-Ta alloy whose main component is TaSi ₂ , Ta-SiO ₂ , Cr-SiO ₂ −
A resistance heating element film such as O, 30 is a signal electrode, and 40 is a counter electrode, which faces the film 20 with a gap between them, and this gap generates heat in response to the signal voltage applied between these electrodes. A resistive heating element 21 is formed. 50 is an oxidation-resistant protection and wear-resistant layer made of silicon carbide (SiC) or the like.

FIG. 4b shows the electrodes 30, 4 in FIG. 4a.
0 is a partial plan view of the structure seen from the upper side of the element 21, that is, from the layer 50 side. The signal electrode 30 and the counter electrode 40 are formed by depositing a thin layer of Cr on the resistive heating element film 20, and then depositing An about 1 micron thick thereon, and then etching them together with the resistive heating element film 20 using a known etching technique. It is etched and formed as illustrated in the figure.

The counter electrode 40 forms a common electrode having, for example, comb-shaped electrode pieces 40a . The signal electrode 30 has thin strip-shaped electrodes 30a...30e facing the electrode pieces 40a...40e and insulated from each other to form mutually insulated rectangular heating elements 21a...21e.
A resistive heating element 21 is formed.

Signal electrode 30a...30 with respect to counter electrode 40
When a signal voltage is selectively applied to e from the drive power supply device 420 shown in FIG. 3, the heating elements 21a...21e generate Joule heat and rise in temperature in response to the amplitude and pulse width of this signal voltage, and the heat-sensitive recording is performed. will be held. The recording density is determined from the arrangement density of the heating elements 21 and is usually selected from about 4 lines/mm to 16 lines/mm.

Figures 5 and 6 show the pulse width Pw and recording density D of the temperature rising recording pulse signal using the apparatus shown in Figure 3.
This is an example of experimental characteristics showing the relationship between

The recording material 120 and the solvent material 200 are in accordance with the above-mentioned [Configuration Example 1].

Capacitor paper with a thickness of 13 μm was used as the substrate 110, and a carnauba wax-colored pigment-based recording material 120 was applied to the surface of the substrate 110 at a coating amount of 4 g/m to a thickness of about 4 μm, and the melt transfer temperature was about 70° C. This is a known transfer sheet for thermal melt transfer recording. Further, the recording solvent 200 is trichlorethylene having a boiling point of 87°C.

The thermal recording head 403 has a heating recording section in which a total of 256 resistance heating elements are arranged in a straight line at an array density of 4/mm, and this recording section 410 is connected to a rubber with a rubber hardness of 65° and a diameter of 24.5 mm. A sheet-like recording medium 300 made of uncoated paper with a thickness of 60 μm and a smoothness of 500 seconds is placed between a recording platen made of a roller.
Pressure weld with a pressure of 130g per 1cm length. The deformation of the rubber platen 500 due to this pressure also has the role of adjusting the contact time between the solvent material 200 and the recording material 120.

Temperature rise recording is performed line sequentially, and the main recording linear speed is 33.3ms per line, and the recording platen 50 is synchronized with this.
0 rotation 501, the paper is intermittently fed at a sub-scanning density of 4 lines/mm. For temperature increase recording, a recording electrical signal with a pulse width Pw modulated with a voltage of 13.35 V and a current of 52.4 mA (power of 0.7 W) is applied to each resistor element.

The recording solvent coater 600 uses a sponge-like roller with a diameter of 10 mm to contact the recording paper surface 301 at a circumferential distance of approximately 35 mm from the recording section 410 of the head 403 by moving as indicated by an arrow 602, and coats the solvent material 200. , to impregnate.

The room temperature during the experiment and the temperature of the recording solvent 200 were 27°C.
It is. Transfer recording density D was measured for each recording color using a reflective optical densitometer (Macbeth RD914).

FIG. 5 shows experimental characteristics when a magenta colored transfer sheet 100 is used.

The characteristic Mm is a known thermal melt transfer recording characteristic by a so-called conventional method in which the coater 600 is moved as indicated by an arrow 601 in FIG. 3 and the solvent material 200 is not applied to the recording paper surface 301.

In FIG. 3, by applying the recording electric signal pulse from the device 420, the temperature of each resistive heating element of the recording head 403 instantaneously reaches a maximum of about 350°C, corresponding to the pulse width Pw. rises to.

This thermal energy is thermally conducted from the back surface 111 of the reference sheet in the pressure recording section 220 to the back surface 12.
2, the recording material 120 is heated. Therefore, the recording material 120 starts to be thermally melted from the back side 122 side in accordance with the pulse width Pw, but the pulse width is constant enough to provide enough energy to thermally melt up to the front side 122 side.
Transfer record 140 does not occur until Pw is reached.
When this pulse width is reached, transfer recording 14 is performed discontinuously.
0, and exhibits binary density recording characteristics in principle, making continuous gradation recording difficult. In this example, this stable thermal melting transfer recording 140 has a rising pulse width Pw
＝Pw _n ＝1.75ms, actual recording material layer 1
In No. 20, the coating thickness was uneven, and even when Pw>Pw _n , the thicker portions were sequentially melted and transferred, and the transferred recording density D increased, reaching a maximum recording density of 1.2 at Pw = 3.5 ms.

On the other hand, the coater 600 is moved as shown by the arrow 602 to apply the room temperature liquid solvent material 200 to the recording paper surface 30.
1. Apply and impregnate. According to the present invention, the time from application to the time of contact with the recording material layer 120, temperature rise recording, and separation of the recording paper 300 and transfer sheet 100, and the solubility of the solvent material 200 are appropriately selected. When the layer surface 121 is not heated, the amount of dissolution is small, and the transfer density, that is, fog transfer is prevented. The characteristic M _d is a characteristic obtained by the hot melt transfer recording method according to the present invention. In response to an increase in Pw and therefore a rise in the temperature of the layer surface 121, the solvent material 12 in the pressure contact temperature increase recording section 220
Since the solubility in 0.0, that is, the amount of hot-melt recording material 130 increases continuously,
The transfer recording density D rises continuously from the recording density _D0 . The rising pulse width is Pw = Pwd
−0.9ms, without discontinuities like characteristic Mm,
This shows that continuous tone transfer recording is possible. Since the boiling point (87°C) of the solvent material 200 is higher than the melting temperature (-70°C) of the recording material 120, in the region where Pw is large, the conventional transfer recording by thermal melting is also loaded, and a highly sensitive transfer recording 140 is obtained. It will be done.

For example, the characteristic Mm of the conventional method is P=Pw _n =1.75ms
In contrast, with the characteristic M _d according to the present invention, D=1.05, and a concentration as high as 0.35 can be obtained compared to the conventional method.

Furthermore, the pulse width Pw applied to the maximum concentration D=1.2 of the characteristic Mm is 3.5 ms, whereas in the characteristic M _d according to the present invention, D=1.2 is obtained with Pw=2.5 ms, and the pulse width Pw The ratio is 1/1.4, which means that 1.4 times faster line sequential recording can be performed at the same density compared to the conventional method, and the power supply can be saved by about 30%. In general, the service life of a thermal recording head varies from -18th power to -18th power as the supplied power increases.
It is said that the speed decreases in proportion to the 21st power, and considering the current demand for high-speed recording and the difficulty of improving the recording speed by configuring the recording head due to the lifespan constraints due to power consumption, how effective is the present invention? It is obvious that

In this way, the excellent effects of the recording method and recording apparatus according to the present invention, such as continuous tone transfer recording, high density, and high speed recording, which were difficult in conventional thermal melt recording, are achieved because the solvent material 200 is in a liquid state. It is based on the basic principle of thermal melt transfer recording, which performs selective temperature-rise transfer recording. It is clear that this method is fundamentally different from the conventional thermal melting recording method, in which extremely large melting energy must be supplied entirely through the thickness of the recording material layer using thermal conduction energy.

Figure 6 shows the same experimental method as in Figure 5.
The hot melt transfer recording characteristics according to the present invention are obtained when only the color pigment is changed to cyan or yellow based on (Configuration Example 1), and the characteristic C _d is cyan color.
Y _d is the characteristic when using the transfer sheet 100 in yellow color.

Both the characteristics C _d and Y _d are similar to the characteristics M _d in Fig. 5,
It can be seen that D rises from the recording density D ₀ and that continuous tone thermal melt transfer recording can be performed. In addition, in the conventional melt transfer recording method in which the solvent material 200 is not coated and impregnated, the binary transfer recording characteristic is similar to the characteristic Mm in FIG. 5, and the stable transfer recording pulse width Pw _n is 1.5 ms for the cyan colored sheet and yellow On the color sheet
It is 1.75ms. Further, the same applies to a black sheet in which the coloring pigment is replaced with carbon powder, and the hot melt transfer recording method of the present invention exhibits continuous tone transfer recording properties, while the conventional melt transfer recording method exhibits binary transfer recording characteristics.

Note that since the solvent material 200 applied to the recording paper 300 in FIG. Preferably, means for evaporative drying, such as blowing air at room temperature, can be provided.

In this way, the recording material 120 of magenta, cyan, yellow, and even black is placed on the base sheet 1.
When the coater 600 is moved as shown by the arrow 601, the conventional thermal melt transfer recording method is applied. When the coater 600 is moved in the direction of arrow 602, not only multicolor transfer recording with binary density but also continuous gradation full color transfer recording is possible.

In the above monochrome, multicolor, and full color hot melt transfer recording, when dye is used as a coloring agent, the above-mentioned [Configuration Example 2] is used, and when the purpose is odorless evaporation of the solvent material 200, the above-mentioned [Configuration Example 2] is used. [Configuration Example 4] is also a solvent material 20 that is solid at room temperature.
When using 0, the above-mentioned [Configuration Example 5] can be used. In addition, when thermal melt transfer is not required,
[Configuration Example 3], which has a high softening point and which is difficult to perform thermal melt transfer recording with a normal thermal recording head, can be used.

In addition, in the case of use in a cold region, the water that is the solvent material 200 freezes in [Configuration Example 4], and the material 200 is solid at room temperature in the case of [Configuration Example 5].
Therefore, in FIG. 3, a heating means such as a resistance heater 810 is installed in the solvent material container 700, and the solvent material 200 is melted and liquefied.
The liquid solvent material 20 is coated and impregnated onto the recording paper surface 301 at a predetermined temperature via the liquid solvent material 20.
In order to keep the recording platen 0 at a predetermined temperature as described above, a heating means such as a resistance heater 811 is provided on the recording platen.

In the recording method according to the present invention, as described above, the temperature of the liquid solvent material 200 in contact with the non-temperature rising part is
This affects the amount of thermal melting due to temperature rise control writing as well as fog transfer. Therefore, the installation of the above-described heating and heat-retaining means 810, 811, etc. has the advantage that stable thermal melt transfer recording can be performed without being affected by the ambient temperature in use, even when using the solvent material 200 which is liquid at room temperature. As shown in 812 in the figure, before the temperature raising writing process, a heating roller is brought into contact with the surface 121 of the recording material, or this roller is brought into contact with the back surface 111 of the substrate, and the surface 121 is set at a predetermined temperature to perform the recording operation. can be stabilized.

In addition, in the above embodiment, the solvent material 200 is
Although the surface 301 of the recording medium is coated and impregnated, even if the surface 121 of the recording material is coated, the surface 301 and the surface 12
It is also possible to coat and impregnate both.

FIG. 7 is a diagram showing another embodiment of the recording method and recording apparatus according to the present invention, in which the solvent material 200 is
This is an example in which the recording material surface 121 is directly coated and impregnated at a position close to the pressure recording section 220. The thickness (i.e., the amount) of the solvent material 200 to be applied is controlled by a solvent amount control roller 610 such as a metal or rubber roller.
When the coater 600 is a sponge body, the contact pressure and gap are adjusted, and when the coater 600 is a non-porous body such as metal or rubber, the gap is adjusted to adjust the amount of coating onto the recording material surface 121. do.
The coating amount adjusting means such as the roller 610 can be similarly applied to the case of FIG. In this example, when the transfer sheet 100 is for heat-melting transfer, moving the coater 600 as indicated by the arrow 601 produces conventional heat-melting transfer recording, while moving the coater 600 as indicated by the arrow 602 allows the recording of the present invention. It is possible to perform recording using heat melt transfer or a combination of heat melt transfer and heat melt transfer.

A porous recording medium can also be used as the recording medium 300.

As described above, the solvent material 200 is applied to the recording medium surface 3.
01, the liquid solvent material 20 can be coated and impregnated onto either or both of the recording material surfaces 121.
From the point of view of shortening the contact time with the recording material 120 and preventing fog transfer, the recording medium surface 30
It is easy to apply and impregnate 1.

8, 9, and 10 are cross-sectional views of examples of transfer bodies used in the recording method and recording apparatus according to the present invention.

For hot melt transfer recording, the pressure recording section 220
In this case, consideration must be given to securing the necessary amount of liquid solvent material 200 sufficient to thermally melt the recording material 120 and expanding the contact area between the recording material 120 and the liquid solvent material 200 for more effective thermal melting. It is.
For example, if the recording medium 300 is made of a material with extremely good surface smoothness, such as plastic film or art paper, and the base sheet 110 is made of PET film or the like, and the recording material layer surface 121 is in an extremely smooth state, the pressure recording section 220 In this case, the liquid recording solvent 200 is pushed out by the pressing pressure, and the absolute amount of the solvent material 200 located between the recording medium surface 301 and the recording material layer surface 201 becomes insufficient. Therefore, at low recording heating temperatures, effective transfer recording 140 is difficult because the absolute amount of heat-melting recording material 130 is small, and the recording characteristics shift toward higher temperatures (ie, larger pulse width Pw). When thermal melting and thermal melting transfer are used together, if the pressing pressure is extremely high, recording characteristics will eventually become similar to those of thermal melting transfer.

To prevent this, for example, as shown in Figure 8,
Base film 110 such as PET of about 3.5 to 1.5 μm
On the surface 112 of , fine irregularities 113 with a depth of about 1 to 5 μm are formed with sandplast at a density greater than that of the transfer record 140, within a range that does not significantly reduce the mechanical strength considering its thickness. It is effective to use a transfer sheet 100 formed by a method, a corona treatment method, or a chemical etching method, and on the surface of which a recording material 120 is coated to a thickness of, for example, about 2 to 7 μm.

In this way, the unevenness 11 is formed on the recording material surface 121.
3 is generated, and the pressure recording part 22
0, the liquid solvent material 200 is accommodated therein, and the amount of the solvent material 200 is ensured and the contact area of the solvent material 200 with the recording material 120 is expanded, thereby improving good thermal melt transfer recording characteristics. is measured.

FIG. 9 shows a heat-resistant non-porous substrate 110 such as PET film or capacitor paper, in which fine powder such as calcium carbonate is coated with a heat-resistant resin such as PVA (polyvinyl alcohol), starch, or polyester as a binder. A porous layer 124 is formed by matte coating, and the recording material 120 is coated and impregnated into the porous layer 124.

If the thickness of the layer 124 is too thin, it will be difficult to obtain the transfer recording density, and if it is too thick, the heat capacity will become large, making it difficult to control the heating temperature rise and making high-speed recording impossible. The thickness of the body 100 as a whole is also selected to be within 30 μm.

In this way, the recording material 120 is impregnated in a porous manner, and its surface 121 also has unevenness 123, and in the pressure recording section 220, the surface unevenness 123 and the layer 1
A liquid solvent material 120 is contained within 24 to perform effective hot melt transfer.

FIG. 10 shows yet another configuration of the transfer body, with the base 1
10 itself is made of heat-resistant porous paper such as manila hemp or pulp with a thickness of 10 to 30 μm, and the back side of the paper is made of heat-resistant leakage prevention material to prevent leakage of recording materials and liquid solvent materials. The agent 150, for example, a heat-resistant resin such as polyester, is coated and impregnated and calendered, or a fluororesin-based oil barrier (for example, Fluorad FC-721 from 3M Co., etc.) is coated and impregnated. The recording material 120 is applied and impregnated into the remaining porous portion. Liquid solvent material 200
is accommodated in and contacted by the uneven portions and porous portions of the surface 121 of the transfer body.

The sheet-like transfer body 100 shown in FIGS. 9 and 10 is
As long as the recording material 120 exists in the porous medium, there is an advantage that it can be used for hot melt transfer recording multiple times.

Securing the necessary amount of the solvent material 200 in the pressure recording unit 220 can also be performed on the recording medium 300 side. For example, when a non-porous material such as a plastic film is used as the recording medium 300, the surface of the recording medium 300 is etched to a depth of about 1 to 5 μm by chemical etching, sandplast, corona treatment, etc., as explained in FIG. It is advantageous to provide matte coat or dull coat treatment of calcium carbonate or the like in the same manner as explained in FIG. In this case, the restrictions on thickness are looser than in the case of FIG. 9, and for example, the surface is coated with fine powder such as calcium carbonate within 20 g per 1 m ² .

Using porous paper as the recording medium 300 as in the embodiment shown in FIG. 3 is recommended from the viewpoint of securing the solvent material 200, and its smoothness is 600 to 20.
About 0 seconds is good.

However, in cases where the solvent material 200 is directly coated and impregnated onto the surface, as in the example shown in FIG.
Generally, porous recording paper has good liquid permeability, so it is excessively impregnated with the solvent material 200, and this permeates and oozes out to the back side of the recording platen 500.
This may cause problems such as leakage or adhesion. Excessive accommodation of such solvent material 200 causes the heat capacity of the recording medium 300 to increase excessively, and its thermal conduction and diffusion also becomes excessive. Writing control may become difficult, high-density transfer recording may become insufficient, or the heat-melting recording material 130 may diffuse, reducing recording resolution. To prevent this, as shown in the cross-sectional view of FIG.
0 is the back surface 302 of the porous recording paper 300a,
Coating and impregnating PVA or starch, etc., and treating this with Supertalenda, etc., or using an oil barrier such as fluororesin (for example, 3M Fluorad FC-721)
etc.) to provide the solvent material 200 with an insoluble anti-solvent coating 310.
In particular, the oil barrier treatment requires only a small amount of coating that does not eliminate the porosity of the recording paper 300a, so that the increase in heat capacity is negligible, making it particularly suitable for high-density thermal melt transfer recording.

FIG. 12 is a cross-sectional structural diagram of a configuration example of a transfer body for color recording.

Color heat-melt transfer recording is also applicable to recording methods and recording apparatuses in which a room-temperature liquid solvent material is coated and impregnated onto the surface of the recording medium or recording material prior to pressure recording, as shown in the examples shown in FIGS. 3 and 7. Applicable.

This embodiment is a color transfer sheet for such a case, and has markers 17 on the surface of the base 110.
0, yellow 120Y, magenta 120
M, cyan 120C, black 120B recording material 4
An example is shown in which primary colors are applied and impregnated in magenta, but three colors other than black 120B may be used.

When the above color transfer sheet is used, during recording, the primary color recording materials are successively superimposed on the recording medium and transferred by heat melting. Therefore, in order to reduce the bleeding of transfer records in overlapping transfers and to realize high-resolution color images, it is recommended to use pigments rather than dyes as the colorants because they do not dissolve and diffuse.

Although the above embodiments have been explained using a thermal recording head as an example, the above embodiments can be similarly applied to temperature increase recording control using a laser beam or a light beam using a light emitting diode array. The descriptions in the specification can be combined as appropriate.

Effects of the Invention As described above, the present invention is a recording method and a recording device based on the principle of thermal melt transfer recording, and achieves continuous tone transfer recording, which was impossible with the conventional thermal melt transfer recording method. In addition, high-density recording and high-speed recording have been realized, and the industrial effects thereof are extremely large.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a cross-sectional view of an embodiment of the recording method and recording apparatus according to the present invention, and FIG. 2 is a solubility curve of the recording material constituent components in the liquid state of the solvent material in the recording method and recording apparatus according to the present invention. FIG. 3 is a cross-sectional structural diagram showing another embodiment of the recording method and recording apparatus according to the present invention, and FIG.
Figure a is a cross-sectional structural diagram of a thermal recording head applied to the recording method and recording apparatus according to the present invention, FIG. 4 b is a planar structural diagram thereof, and FIGS. FIG. 7 is a cross-sectional configuration diagram showing other embodiments of the recording method and recording apparatus according to the present invention, and FIGS. 8, 9, and 10 are graphs showing experimental characteristics obtained in the configuration of FIG. 11 is a cross-sectional structural diagram of an embodiment of a transfer body used in the recording method and recording apparatus according to the present invention, and FIG. 12 is a cross-sectional structural diagram of an embodiment of a recording medium used in the recording method and recording apparatus according to the present invention. The figure is a cross-sectional structural diagram showing an embodiment of a transfer body used in the recording method and recording apparatus according to the present invention. 10... Transfer body, 110... Substrate, 120...
Recording material, 200... Solvent material, 300... Recording medium, 401... Incident energy generation control device,
403... Thermal recording head, 600... Solvent material application coater, 700... Solvent material container.

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] 1. A recording medium, a transfer body having a recording material that is solid at room temperature on one side of a base body, and a recording material having a melting point lower than the melting transfer temperature of the recording material and containing constituent components of the recording material. The solvent material is brought into contact with and positioned in a liquid state on the recording material or the recording medium using a solvent material which dissolves at least one component of the solvent and whose solubility increases as the temperature rises. The recording material is brought into pressure contact with the recording medium with a solvent material interposed therebetween, selective temperature raising writing control is performed on the recording material from the side facing the solvent material, and then the transfer body is removed from the recording medium. A thermal transfer recording method characterized by peeling off the recording material and selectively transferring and recording the recording material. 2. The thermal transfer recording method according to claim 1, wherein the transfer member is peeled from the recording medium while the solvent material remains in a liquid state. 3. Claim 1, characterized in that color transfer recording is performed by sequentially transfer-recording a plurality of types of recording materials of different primary colors in a predetermined order and at a predetermined position on the same recording medium. Thermal transfer recording method described in section. 4. The thermal transfer recording method according to claim 1, wherein the recording material has a heat melt transfer function, and the boiling point of the solvent material is selected to be higher than the heat melt transfer temperature. 5. A transfer member having a recording medium, a recording material that is solid at room temperature on one side of a substrate, and at least one component of the recording material that has a melting point lower than the melt transfer temperature of the recording material. means for dissolving a solvent material in a liquid state whose solubility increases as the temperature rises, and bringing the solvent material into contact with the recording material or the recording medium in a liquid state at a predetermined temperature; means for bringing the transfer body and the recording medium into pressure contact via a solvent material;
means for selectively controlling the temperature increase from the side facing the solvent material to the recording material during this pressure contact;
and a means for separating the transfer body and the recording medium after the temperature rising recording, using the solvent material as a medium,
A recording apparatus characterized in that the recording material is selectively transferred and recorded onto the recording medium. 6. The recording apparatus according to claim 5, wherein the transfer member is peeled off from the recording medium while the solvent material remains in a liquid state. 7. The recording device according to claim 5, wherein a solvent material is present in the uneven gaps provided on the recording material surface or the recording medium surface. 8. The recording device according to claim 5, wherein the transfer body is constructed by impregnating a recording material into a porous body provided on the surface of the substrate. 9. Claim 5, characterized in that the transfer body is composed of a porous material impregnated with a permeation-preventing agent that prevents permeation of the solvent material to the back side of the base. Recording device as described in section. 10. The recording device according to claim 5, wherein the recording medium is constructed by arranging a porous body on the surface of a non-porous body. 11. Claim 5, characterized in that the recording medium is made of a porous material impregnated with a permeation preventive agent that prevents permeation of a solvent material to the back side of the recording medium. Recording device as described. 12. The recording apparatus according to claim 5, further comprising means for maintaining the recording material or the solvent material disposed on the recording medium in a liquid state and setting it at a predetermined temperature. 13. Claim 5, characterized in that a solvent material that is solid at room temperature is heated and melted to form a liquid state, and a means is provided for coating the recording material or recording medium to a predetermined temperature. recording device. 14 Multiple types of recording materials with different primary colors,
6. The recording apparatus according to claim 5, further comprising means for sequentially performing color transfer recording in a prescribed order and at a prescribed position on the same recording medium. 15. The recording apparatus according to claim 5, wherein the selective temperature increase writing control of the recording material is performed by a thermal recording head. 16 Claim 5, characterized in that the recording material has a heat melt transfer function, and the boiling point of the solvent material is higher than the heat melt transfer temperature.
Recording device as described in section.