A
photocopier (or copier) is a machine that makes
paper copies of documents and other visual images quickly and cheaply. Most current photocopiers use a technology called
xerography, a dry process using heat. (Copiers can also use other output technologies such as
ink jet, but xerography is standard for office copying.)
Xerographic office photocopying was introduced by
Xerox in the 1960s, and over the following 20 years it gradually replaced copies made by Verifax,
Photostat,
carbon paper,
mimeograph machines, and other
duplicating machines. The prevalence of its use is one of the factors that prevented the development of the
paperless office heralded early in the
digital revolution.
Photocopying is widely used in business, education, and government. There have been many predictions that photocopiers will eventually become obsolete as information workers continue to increase their digital document creation and distribution, and rely less on distributing actual pieces of paper.
How a photocopier works (using xerography)
Schematic overview of the xerographic photocopying process (step 1-4)
- Charging: The surface of a cylindrical drum is electrostatically charged by either a high voltage wire called a corona wire or a charge roller. The drum has a coating of a photoconductive material. A photoconductor is a semiconductor that becomes conductive when exposed to light.
- Exposure: A bright lamp illuminates the original document, and the white areas of the original document reflect the light onto the surface of the photoconductive drum. The areas of the drum that are exposed to light (those areas that correspond to white areas of the original document) become conductive and therefore discharge to ground. The area of the drum not exposed to light (those areas that correspond to black portions of the original document) remain negatively charged. The result is a latent electrical image on the surface of the drum. (In digital machines, the original document is scanned and digitized and a laser is employed to discharge the drum in a similar fashion)
- Developing: The toner is positively charged. When it is applied to the drum to develop the image, it is attracted and sticks to the areas that are negatively charged (black areas), just as paper sticks to a toy balloon with a static charge.
- Transfer: The resulting toner image on the surface of the drum is transferred from the drum onto a piece of paper with a higher negative charge than the drum.
- Fusing: The toner is melted and bonded to the paper by heat and pressure rollers.
- Cleaning: The drum is wiped clean with a rubber blade and completely discharged by light.
This example is of a negatively charged drum and paper, and positively charged toner as is common in today's digital copiers. Some copiers, mostly older analog copiers, employ a positively charged drum and paper, and negatively charged toner.
History
In 1937,
Bulgarian
physicist Georgi Nadjakov found that, when placed into an electric field and exposed to light, some
dielectrics acquire permanent electric polarization in the exposed areas. That polarization persists in the dark and is destroyed in light.
Chester Carlson, the inventor of photocopying, was originally a
patent attorney, as well as a part-time researcher and inventor. His job at the
patent office in
New York required him to make a large number of copies of important papers. Carlson, who was
arthritic, found this to be a painful and tedious process. This motivated him to conduct experiments with
photoconductivity. Carlson used his kitchen for his "
electrophotography" experiments, and, in 1938, he applied for a patent for the process. He made the first photocopy using a
zinc plate covered with
sulfur. The words "10-22-38 Astoria" were written on a
microscope slide, which was placed on top of more sulfur and under a bright light. After the slide was removed, a mirror image of the words remained. Carlson tried to sell his invention to some companies, but failed because the process was still underdeveloped. At the time, multiple copies were most commonly made at the point of document origination, using
carbon paper or manual duplicating machines, and people did not see the need for an electronic machine. Between 1939 and 1944, Carlson was turned down by over 20 companies, including
IBM and
General Electric—neither of which believed there was a significant market for copiers.
In 1944, the
Battelle Memorial Institute, a non-profit organization in
Columbus, Ohio, contracted with Carlson to refine his new process. Over the next five years, the institute conducted experiments to improve the process of electrophotography. In 1947, Haloid Corporation (a small New York-based manufacturer and seller of photographic paper) approached Battelle to obtain a license to develop and market a copying machine based on this technology.
Haloid felt that the word "electrophotography" was too complicated and did not have good recall value. After consulting a professor of classical language at
Ohio State University, Haloid and Carlson changed the name of the process to "
Xerography," which was derived from
Greek words that meant "dry writing." Haloid called the new copier machines "Xerox Machines" and, in 1948, the word "Xerox" was
trademarked. Haloid eventually changed its name to
Xerox Corporation.
In 1949, Xerox Corporation introduced the first xerographic copier called the Model A. Xerox became so successful that, in
North America, photocopying came to be popularly known as "xeroxing." Xerox has actively fought to prevent "Xerox" from becoming a
genericized trademark. While the word "Xerox" has appeared in some dictionaries as a synonym for photocopying, Xerox Corporation typically requests that such entries be modified, and that people not use the term "Xerox" in this way. Some languages include hybrid terms, such as the widely used
Polish term
kserokopia ("xerocopy"), even though relatively few photocopiers are of the Xerox brand.
In the early 1950s,
Radio Corporation of America (RCA) introduced a variation on the process called
Electrofax, whereby images are formed directly on specially coated paper and rendered with a toner dispersed in a liquid.
During the 1960s and through the 1980s,
Savin Corporation developed and sold a line of liquid-toner copiers that implemented a technology based on patents held by the company.
Prior to the widespread adoption of xerographic copiers, photo-direct copies produced by machines such as
Kodak's Verifax were used. A primary obstacle associated with the pre-xerographic copying technologies was the high cost of supplies: a Verifax print required supplies costing USD $0.15 in 1969, while a Xerox print could be made for USD $0.03 including paper and labor. At that time, Thermofax photocopying machines in libraries could make letter-sized copies for USD $0.25 or more (at a time when the minimum wage for a US worker was USD $1.65).
Xerographic copier manufacturers took advantage of a high perceived-value of the 1960s and early 1970s, and marketed paper that was "specially designed" for xerographic output. By the end of the 1970s, paper producers made xerographic "runability" one of the requirements for most of their office paper brands.
Some devices sold as photocopiers have replaced the drum-based process with
inkjet or transfer film technology.
Among the key advantages of photocopiers over earlier copying technologies are their ability:
- to use plain (untreated) office paper,
- to implement duplex (or two-sided) printing, and
- eventually, to sort and/or staple output.
Color photocopiers
Colored toner became available in the 1950s, although full-color copiers were not commercially available until
3M released the
Color-in-Color copier in 1968, which used a
dye sublimation process rather than conventional electrostatic technology. The first electrostatic color copier was released by
Canon in 1973.
Color photocopying is a concern to
governments, as it facilitates
counterfeiting currency. Some countries have incorporated anti-counterfeiting technologies into their currency specifically to make it harder to use a color photocopier for counterfeiting. These technologies include watermarks, microprinting,
holograms, tiny security strips made of plastic (or other material), and ink that appears to change color as the currency is viewed at an angle. Some photocopying machines contain special
software that can prevent copying currency that contains a
special pattern.
Digital technology
In recent years, all new photocopiers have adopted
digital technology, thus replacing the older
analog technology. With digital copying, the copier effectively consists of an integrated
scanner and
laser printer. This design has several advantages, such as automatic image quality enhancement and the ability to "build jobs" (that is, to scan page images independently of the process of printing them). Some digital copiers can function as high-speed scanners; such models typically offer the ability to send documents via email or to make them available on file servers.
A great advantage of digital copier technology is "automatic digital
collation." For example, when copying a set of 20 pages 20 times, a digital copier scans each page only once, then uses the stored information to produce 20 sets. In an analog copier, either each page is scanned 20 times (a total of 400 scans), making one set at a time, or 20 separate output trays are used for the 20 sets.
Low-end copiers also use
digital technology, but tend to consist of a standard PC scanner coupled to an inkjet or low-end laser printer, both of which are far slower than their counterparts in high-end copiers. However, low-end scanner-inkjets can provide color copying at a far lower cost than can a traditional color copier. The cost of electronics is such that combined scanner-printers sometimes have built-in fax machines. (See
Multifunction printer.)
Copyright issues
Photocopying material that is subject to
copyright (such as books or scientific papers) is subject to restrictions in most countries. This is common practice, as the cost of purchasing a book for the sake of one article or a few pages can be excessive. The principle of
fair use (in the United States) or
fair dealing (in other
Berne Convention countries) allows this type of copying for research purposes.
In certain countries, such as
Canada, some
universities pay royalties from each photocopy made at university copy machines and copy centers to
copyright collectives out of the revenues from the photocopying, and these collectives distribute resulting funds to various scholarly publishers. In the United States, photocopied compilations of articles, handouts, graphics, and other information called
readers are often required texts for college classes. Either the instructor or the copy center is responsible for clearing copyright for every article in the reader, and attribution information must be clearly included in the reader.
Health issues
Exposure to
ultraviolet light is a concern. In the early days of photocopiers, the sensitizing light source was filtered green to match the optimal sensitivity of the photoconductive surface. This filtering conveniently removed all ultraviolet . Currently, a variety of light sources are used. As
glass transmits ultraviolet rays between 325 and 400 nanometers, copiers with ultraviolet-producing lights such as fluorescent,
tungsten halogen, or
xenon flash, expose documents to some ultraviolet .
Concerns about emissions from photocopy machines have been expressed by some in connection with the use of
selenium and emissions of
ozone and fumes from heated toner . However, these concerns may be due to misunderstanding or exaggeration .
Forensic identification
Similar to
forensic identification of
typewriters,
computer printers and copiers can be traced by imperfections in their output. The mechanical tolerances of the toner and paper feed mechanisms cause
banding, which can reveal information about the individual device's mechanical properties. It is often possible to identify the manufacturer and brand, and, in some cases, the individual printer can be identified from a set of known printers by comparing their outputs.
Some high-quality color printers and copiers
steganographically embed their identification code into the printed pages, as fine and almost invisible patterns of yellow dots. Some sources identify
Xerox and
Canon as companies doing this . The
Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has investigated this issue and documented how the Xerox DocuColor printer's serial number, as well as the date and time of the printout, are encoded in a repeating 8×15 dot pattern in the yellow channel.
EFF is working to reverse engineer . The US government has been reported to have asked these companies to implement such a tracking scheme, so that
counterfeiting can be traced.
Current brands
- Xerox / Fuji Xerox partnered companies with non-overlapping marketing areas
