Patent attributes
The invention provides a thermal transfer recording method which can improve surface flatness of a protective layer in the thermal transfer recording method in which the protective layer is transferred by a thermal head, and a thermal transfer recording apparatus which can realize the thermal transfer recording method. In the thermal transfer recording method in which a protective layer provided in a substrate sheet of a transfer sheet is transferred onto an image of a printing material by heat of a heat generation portion of a thermal head, arithmetic mean roughness Ra defined in JIS B 0601 is set to a value not more than 30 nm at an interface on the side of the substrate sheet of the protective layer, the part is separated into a plurality of separate portions by providing a plurality of slits in the heat generation portion, a plurality of individual electrode portions are arranged on the upstream side in a feed direction y of the plurality of separate portions, a common electrode portion is arranged on a downstream side in the feed direction y of the heat generation portion, and a flat pressurizing surface S is formed on the downstream side of the plurality of separate portions in the heat generation portion and the common electrode portion.
