Patent ID: 7442495
Filing Date: 2008-10-28
Classification: G03C,Y10S

Abstract:
1. A photothermographic material comprising: an image forming layer comprising at least a photosensitive silver halide, a non-photosensitive organic silver salt, a reducing agent, and a binder on at least one side of a support; an outermost layer on the same side of the support as the image forming layer; and a non-photosensitive intermediate layer between the outermost layer and the image forming layer, wherein 50% by weight or more of a binder of the non-photosensitive intermediate layer is formed by a hydrophobic polymer latex; the outermost layer has a mean thickness of from 0.1 μm to 0.45 μm; the non-photosensitive intermediate layer further contains poly(vinyl alcohol) derivative as a viscosity-increasing agent, and a concentration of the poly(vinyl alcohol) derivative added to a coating solution of the non-photosensitive intermediate layer is in the range of from 0.05 % by weight to 20 % by weight in the coating solution so that the non-photosensitive intermediate layer has a variation coefficient of a thickness distribution of 50% or less based on a mean thickness of the non-photosensitive intermediate layer wherein the mean thickness and the variation coefficient of the thickness distribution of the non-photosensitive intermediate layer are measured by observation of cross sections of the photothermographic material by means of a scanning electron microscope, and the measurement includes: preparing cross sections perpendicular to a plane of the photothermographic material; observing the cross sections over a length of 1 mm by a scanning electron microscope to determine a cross section curve C determining the mean thickness T calculating an average roughness Rz for C calculating the variation coefficient from the following equation, σ(%)=Rz/T