International Business Machines Corporation

Marvin B Skolnik

Arnold Reisman

Ernest Bassous

Mohamed O Aboelfotoh

Neil M Poley

Carlton M Osburn

Peter Pleshko

Carl Altman

A mirror array light valve is described comprising a transparent substrate, a plurality of post members arranged in a regular array on said substrate, and a plurality of deflectable square, rectangular, hexagonal or the like light-reflecting elements arranged in a regular array on said post members such that a post member is positioned under a corresponding corner of each element; methods for making the mirror array light valve are also described.

Mirror array light valve

A D.C. gaseous discharge display panel operated in a storage mode uses a layer of resistive material over the cathodes of the display. In addition to protecting the electrodes from ion bombardment induced sputtering during discharge, the material provides a resistance to each discharge cell, provides isolation between individual cathodes by reducing discharge spreading along the cathode conductors and prevents surface charge building during panel operation. By utilizing a combination of metal and insulator in the resistance layer, the D.C. discharge can be sustained at lower operating voltage, permitting a reduction in the power requirements of the panel.

DC Gas discharge display panel with internal memory

A gaseous discharge display and/or memory device comprises a pair of sealed glass plates having metallic conductor arrays formed thereon and insulated from contact with the gas by a dielectric layer. The crossover points of the conductors define the locations of the individual cells which are controlled by selective application of write, sustain, and erase signals. To permit uniform operation of individual cells, the plates must be maintained precisely spaced over their entire display surface. To effect this requirement in a large size panel, metallic spacers are secured to the upper surface of the conductors of the metallic conductor arrays prior to the formation of the dielectric layer, the size and number of these spacers being determined by the geometry and resolution of the gaseous discharge display device.

Gas panel spacer technology

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Kingston, NY, United States of America

Marvin B Skolnik