How Xerox machine do our tasks much simpler ?

To understand the working of a photo copier (Xerox machine), let me first explain about "PHOTO-CONDUCTOR"

~~~> The word itself says that it becomes conductor when exposed to light.

~~~>  Photo-conductivity is a electrical phenomenon where photo-conductor becomes electrically charged when exposed to light.

     Go back to your school days and remember the days when we used to rub pen caps to our hair and make the cap to attract small pieces of paper......What happens in this process is that while rubbing cap to our hair we are making cap charged with static electricity which will then attract small pieces of paper. This simple phenomenon is used in a photo-copier.

Main components of photo-copier:

1. Source of light

2. Photo-conductor mounted on a drum

3. Toner (Ink) along with developer

4. Fuser unit

Working:

 ~~~> When you place a document inside a xerox machine and press 'start' , a beam of light from light source will falls on the document at an angle. 

~~~> The light which falls on the white area of the document will get reflected back and which falls on "text or image of document" will get observed.

 ~~~> Reflected light will fall back on photo-conductor and makes it electrified based on the pattern of reflected light. The drum will then rotates photo-conductor towards the toner along with paper, where developer in the toner made the ink powder electrically charged. Thus the ink powder will get attracted to the paper as per the pattern of charge on Photo conductor.

~~~> This paper with the toner on it will pass to the Fuser unit where the toner on the paper will get heated up or pressurized to turn it into ink and made it to permanently stick to the paper.

Add-on:

Chester carlson inventor of photo copying, had a job which requires him to make large number of copies of important papers . Then he did experiments using photo conductivity and finally end up with this idea. Carlson tried to sell his invention to companies including IBM and General Electric but he was turned down. 

Note: Content is limited to my knowledge and comments are most welcome....😊