A photoconductor unit includes a photoconductor and an electrode. The photoconductor includes a base member that is cylindrical and has a hardness that decreases with increasing distance from a first end toward a second end in an axial direction, and a photosensitive layer formed on an outer peripheral surface of the base member. The electrode is in contact with an inner peripheral surface of an open end portion of the base member at the first end.

A photoconductor unit includes a photoconductor and an electrode. The photoconductor includes a base member that is cylindrical and has a hardness that decreases with increasing distance from a first end toward a second end in an axial direction, and a photosensitive layer formed on an outer peripheral surface of the base member. The electrode is in contact with an inner peripheral surface of an open end portion of the base member at the first end.

A concave and convex pattern forming apparatus, includes a pattern forming unit that forms a pattern with a transparent infrared absorbing material on a surface of a foam body that is foamed by heating; and an irradiation unit that irradiates, with infrared rays, the surface having a pattern formed by the pattern forming unit.

Provided is an electrophotographic photosensitive member that can achieve both of the suppression of a fluctuation in potential of the photosensitive member at the time of its repeated use, and the prevention of the occurrence of a black spot-like image defect at high levels. The electrophotographic photosensitive member includes in this order: a support; an intermediate layer; and a photosensitive layer, the intermediate layer containing particles each containing titanium oxide, and the particles having a mass increase ratio of 0.005% or more when heated under a nitrogen atmosphere from 300 C. to 900 C.

An electrophotographic photosensitive member includes a photosensitive layer of a single layer. The photosensitive layer contains a charge generating material, a hole transport material, an electron transport material, and a binder resin. An optical response time is 0.05 milliseconds or longer and 0.85 milliseconds or shorter. The optical response time is a time from irradiation of a surface of the photosensitive layer charged to +800 V with pulse light having a wavelength of 780 nm to decay of a surface potential of the photosensitive layer from +800 V to +400 V. The pulse light has an intensity that allows the surface potential of the photosensitive layer to decay to +200 V from +800 V after 400 milliseconds elapse from the irradiation of the surface of the photosensitive layer charged to +800 V with the pulse light. The photosensitive layer has a Martens hardness at 50 C. of at least 160 N/mm.sup.2.

An electrophotographic photoreceptor includes a conductive substrate, and a lamination type photosensitive layer including a charge generation layer and a charge transport layer or a single layer type photosensitive layer that is a photosensitive layer disposed on the conductive substrate, in which the charge transport layer or the single layer type photosensitive layer is an outermost layer and contains a charge transport material and a binder resin containing a polyester resin having an aromatic ring, the charge transport layer or the single layer type photosensitive layer has an average thickness of 28 ?m or greater and 50 ?m or less, and a weight reduction ratio of the charge transport layer or the single layer type photosensitive layer from 30? C. to 175? C. in thermogravimetric analysis is 0.1% by mass or less.

A photoconductor unit includes a photoconductor and an electrode. The photoconductor includes a base member that is cylindrical and has a hardness that decreases with increasing distance from a first end toward a second end in an axial direction, and a photosensitive layer formed on an outer peripheral surface of the base member. The electrode is in contact with an inner peripheral surface of an open end portion of the base member at the first end.

A photoconductor unit includes a photoconductor and an electrode. The photoconductor includes a base member that is cylindrical and has a hardness that decreases with increasing distance from a first end toward a second end in an axial direction, and a photosensitive layer formed on an outer peripheral surface of the base member. The electrode is in contact with an inner peripheral surface of an open end portion of the base member at the first end.

Provided is a photoconductor for electrophotography having high sensitivity, low residual potential, and good wear resistance and contamination resistance, and that is less likely to cause light-induced fatigue and filming, and also exhibits good potential stability before and after repeated printing, even without a surface protective layer formed on a photosensitive layer. Provided also are a process of producing the photoconductor and an electrophotographic apparatus. The photoconductor for electrophotography includes a conductive substrate and a photosensitive layer formed on the conductive substrate and including a hole transport material having a structure represented by general formula (1) below; a binder resin having a repeating structure represented by general formula (2) below; and at least one electron transport material having a structure represented by general formulae (ET1) to (ET3) below:

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The present disclosure relates to an electrophotographic photoreceptor including at least a photosensitive layer and a protective layer in sequence on a conductive support, and the protective layer contains a cured product of a curable compound, conductive particles having a band gap of 2.0 eV or more and 3.6 eV or less, and particles having a band gap of 8.0 eV or more.