Patent ID: 8175498

Claim:
An image forming apparatus comprising: a latent image carrier which rotates in a predetermined movement direction and carries an electrostatic latent image on a surface thereof; a first charging unit which charges the latent image carrier with a surface potential having the same polarity as a charged polarity of toner at a first charge position; a second charging unit which supplies a charge having a reverse polarity of the charged polarity of the toner toward the surface of the latent image carrier at a second charge position located on a downstream side of the first charge position in a movement direction of the latent image carrier; a latent image forming unit which forms the electrostatic latent image on the surface of the latent image carrier at a latent image formation position located on the downstream side of the second charge position in the movement direction of the latent image carrier by lowering a surface potential of an image region, where the toner is attached, on the surface of the latent image carrier and by allowing a surface potential of a non-image region, where no toner is attached, to be different from the surface potential of the image region; a toner carrying roller which is formed in a roller shape, is disposed to face the latent image carrier with a predetermined gap therebetween at a development position located on the downstream side of the latent image formation position in the movement direction of the latent image carrier, and carries a toner layer containing both a contact toner which comes in direct contact with the surface of the toner carrying roller and a non-contact toner which comes in contact with the contact toner and does not come in contact with the surface of the toner carrying roller; an electric field forming unit which develops the electrostatic latent image by the toner at the development position by generating an alternating electric field as a toner fly electric field between the latent image carrier and the toner carrying roller; and a transfer unit which transfers a toner image formed by developing the electrostatic latent image to a transfer medium at a transfer position located on the downstream side of the development position in the movement direction of the latent image carrier, wherein the transfer unit includes a charge supply unit which supplies a charge having the reverse polarity of the charged polarity of the toner toward the non-image region on the surface of the latent image carrier between the development position and the transfer position, and a potential which does not exceed discharge limitation in the image region on the latent image carrier and exceeds the discharge limitation in the non-image region on the latent image carrier is applied to the charge supply unit.