Abstract: Redox buffers in the range of certain potentials were adopted to treat both sulfur sensitization centers on the surface of mono dispersed cubic silver bromide and latent image centers formed during exposures in order to examine their respective response curves after bleaching and regeneration of silver clusters. Experimental results confirmed that there were silver clusters in the sulfur sensitization centers, which played an important role in the sulfur sensitization as well as the sensitization efficiency seemed to be related to content of silver. For this reason, it has been proposed that the sulfur sensitization centers consist of silver sulfide clusters and silver clusters, in which these two kinds of clusters may have different functions in the process of latent image formation, but both are advantageous to increase in the efficiency of LI formation.

Key words: sulfur sensitization, latent image formation, redox buffers