Patent ID: 7727619

Claim:
A developer carrying member for carrying a developer, comprising: a substrate; and a resin coat layer formed on a surface of the substrate, wherein said resin coat layer contains at least a phenol resin as a binder resin and graphitized particles, wherein said graphitized particles are prepared by heat treatment of particles which are optically anisotropic and formed of a single phase, in an inert atmosphere at 2,300 to 3,200° C., said particles being mesophase pitch, and said graphitized particles have a degree of graphitization p (002) of 0.20≦p (002)≦0.95, and wherein the surface of said resin coat layer has an average value A and a standard deviation σ of: 100 ≦A≦ 800(N/mm 2 ); and σ<30(N/mm 2 ); which are determined from the hardness distribution of measured values HU of universal hardness in a surface physical-property test, calculated according to the following expression: universal hardness value HU=K×F/h 2 (N/mm 2 ), where K represents a constant, F represents a test load (N), and h represents the maximum indentation depth (mm) of an indenter, and wherein said graphitized particles have a volume-average particle diameter in a range of 0.5 μm to 4.0 μm, and the surface of said resin coat layer has an arithmetic-mean roughness Ra in a range of 0.20 μm to 0.70 μm according to JIS B 0601.