An electrophotographic photosensitive member is provided minimizing the
absorption of image exposure having a short wavelength in a surface layer
and keeping good electrophotographic properties including resolving
power. The electrophotographic photosensitive member includes a
conductive substrate, and a photoconductive layer and a surface region
layer sequentially superimposed on the conductive substrate. The surface
region layer is composed of a non-single-crystal silicon nitride film
containing an Group element in the periodic table and a carbon atom and
using at least a silicon atom and a nitrogen atom as base materials. In
the surface region layer, the Group 13 element content with respect to
the total amount of constituent atoms has distribution having at least
two local maximum values in the thickness direction, and an the average
concentration of nitrogen atoms is 30 atm % to 70 atm %.