The internal operation of a laser printer

The core principle

The core principle is the physical law: opposite charges attract, like charges repel.

Main components

1. A drum, photoreceptor drum, photosensitive drum
   The drum is coated with photosensitive material.
   The drum is negatively charged.
   The photosensitive material loses its charge when exposed to light
2. toner, toner hopper/toner container
   Toner is the powdered ink of laser printer
3. laser beam, laser unit
4. fuser unit
   

The internal operation

The operation can be summarized as follows:

1. The drum is coated with photosensitive material. It revolves around its axis. The surface of the drum is coated with negative charges.
2. At each step the drum revolves, the laser beam is switched on to discharge the position or switched off to leave the charge on the drum（In other words, the photosensitive material loses its charge if it is exposed to light. Specific area of the drum is discharged by switching on the laser beam. Those areas are the places where text or image is to be printed. The text or image to be printed actually has been drawn on the drum, but you cannot see it. We can say that the laser is used to draw the text or image on the drum ）.
3. The process continues until a whole page of electrostatic image is created.
4. The drum continues revolving. When it passes by the toner roller, the toner would be attracted to the discharged areas because the toner is also negatively charged. Since the surface of the drum is also negatively charged, the toner repels the areas which are left negatively charged in step 2. (like charges repel)
5. The drum rolls over a sheet of paper which is initially positively charged. The paper attracts the toner away from the drum. The image is transferred from the drum to the page (opposite charges attract.).
6. The inked page is then passed through the fuser. The heat and pressure from the 2 rollers burn the toner particles and the image is permanently formed into the fibers of the paper. (That is why the paper is hot when it exits)
7. The drum is discharged before the process for next page starts.