Sharp Kabushiki Kaisha Corporation

Shingo Abe

Tetsuya Inui

Yorishige Ishii

Hirotsugu Matoba

Susumu Hirata

Hiroshi Onda

Masaharu Kimura

Hajime Horinaka

Kenji Ohta

Hideaki Fujita

Kuniaki Okada

Sadaaki Shimonaga

Zenjiro Yamashita

The paper feeding cassette includes a push-up plate provided inside the cassette for receiving a stack of sheets entirely thereon regardless of the size of the sheets. On the push-up plate is mounted a trailing edge plate which is coupled to a fixing plate through a slide groove and which is configured to be capable of sliding in a sheet feeding direction in which the stacked sheets are to be fed to restrict the position of the stack of the sheets in the sheet feeding direction. The trailing edge plate is provided, at opposite sides thereof, with stoppers to be inserted into positioning holes of the push-up plate for fixing the trailing edge plate.

Paper feeding cassette for image forming apparatus

Roll-like ink sheet is divided in a virtual manner into a plural number q of groups in the sub-scanning direction of ink sheet. In each of the groups, a plural number p of printing areas displaced in the sub-scanning direction are formed in a virtual manner. Print areas are partitioned in a virtual manner into a plurality of blocks in both main scanning direction and sub-scanning direction. Second accumulated printing ratio &eegr; for each of the blocks according to an image to be printed is calculated using first accumulated printing ratio &eegr; for each of the blocks. In a plurality of printing areas consisting of only blocks having second accumulated printing ratio &eegr; equal to or less than predetermined value &eegr; evaluation value for each of the print areas, dependent upon second accumulated printing ratio &eegr; is calculated. Any print area having a small consumption amount of ink is used for printing according to the evaluation value.

Ink sheet type-printing apparatus

A deformable mirror includes a first base plate having a first reference surface, a transparent second base plate having a second reference surface opposed to the first reference surface, a flexible member disposed between the first base plate and the second base plate and having a reflective surface on a surface thereof, the flexible member being adapted to be fitted on the first reference surface or on the second reference surface, and a driver for fitting the flexible member on the first reference surface or on the second reference surface, wherein the flexible member is held between the first base plate and the second base plate, and the light rays to be reflected by the reflective surface are imparted with the first degree of spherical aberration or with the second degree of spherical aberration by fitting the flexible member on the first reference surface or on the second reference surface by the driver.

Deformable mirror and optical data reproducing apparatus using the same

An ink-jet head is provided with a container having an ink-discharge opening in its wall section; a structural element that has peripheral edges at least both ends in one direction of which are secured to the wall faces inside the container, that divides the inside of the container in a fluid-separated state, and that is allowed to be distorted; and a voltage-applying unit for applying a voltage to the structural element. The structural element is constituted of a piezoelectric material, and the shape of the structural element is changed in response to the voltage applied by the voltage-applying unit so that ink is allowed to discharge from the ink-discharge opening. Therefore, the above-mentioned arrangement makes it possible to provide a greater ink-discharging force and ink-discharging speed, while maintaining a small size of the head. Moreover, it is possible to provide an ink-jet head having a good discharging efficiency with long service life.

Ink-jet head having ink chamber and non-ink chamber divided by

A recording device having a highly integrated recording head, which can perform high-quality high-speed printing of halftone image and which is compact and inexpensive to manufacture and can work at reduced running cost (with no need of replacing its recording head due to contamination with ink) and at saved power consumption. The recording device comprises an ink feeding unit for applying ultraviolet curing ink to an image transfer intermediate, an ultraviolet ink-curing head for selectively ultraviolet curing ink applied to the image transfer intermediate according to an image pattern, a platen for pressing a recording medium against the image transfer intermediate to transfer not-cured ink from the image transfer intermediate onto the recording medium, ultraviolet thermal ink-curing unit for fixing the ink on the recording medium and an ink removing unit for removing residual ink from the image transfer intermediate.

Recording device

A pair of opposite end portions of a buckling exothermic body as an exothermic resistor are fixed onto a substrate via insulating members. The buckling exothermic body heats with resistance thereof by applying a voltage from a power source to the buckling exothermic body via a switch. As inner temperature of the exothermic resistor reaches a predetermined temperature or higher required for the exothermic resistor to buckle, and a compressive force exceeds a buckling load, the exothermic resistor buckles and distorts towards thermosensible paper from a non-shifted state in which there is virtually no thermal stress. As the buckled and distorted exothermic resistor comes into contact with the thermosensible paper, recording, such as printing, is performed only at the contact portion. This reduces thermal mutual interference between neighboring buckling exothermic bodies. As a result, recording of high resolution and high print quality is performed. Moreover, since, unlike the prior art, there is no need to provide an abrasion protection layer, production costs can be cut down and a smaller and lighter head can be made.

Thermal head with buckling exothermic resistor and manufacturing method

A deformable mirror including: a flexible member including a reflective surface for reflecting light incident thereupon; and a reference surface substrate including a support portion for supporting a peripheral portion of the flexible member, and a curved portion provided inside the support portion, the curved portion providing a space for allowing for the flexible member to be elastically deformed. A height of a central portion of the curved portion of the reference surface substrate is set to be equal to or less than a height of the support portion of the reference surface substrate. The flexible member is elastically deformed by being drawn toward the curved portion of the reference surface substrate, thereby giving a predetermined aberration to light incident upon the reflective surface of the flexible member.

Deformable mirror

Spacer particles are supplied and allocated onto a particle distributing jig plate having numerous spacer particle positioning depressed portions for receiving the spacer particles in a one-to-one correspondence. Then the particle distributing jig plate is made to face, and be registered with, the liquid crystal display element substrate, so that the spacer particles allocated to the depressed portions are transferred to the substrate of a liquid crystal display element.

Method for distributing spacer particles onto the substrate of a liquid

An ink jet head, having a long life, capable of discharging ink with a strong force and at a high speed is provided at a small size. A container comprises a casing and a nozzle plate covering the upper surface of the casing and an ink discharge opening. A buckling structure is fixed at its longitudinal ends to the bottom surface of the container via an installing member, and its center portion can be deformed upward by buckling. A diaphragm is positioned above the buckling structure with a space therebetween and placed on an inner wall of the casing with its periphery fixed thereto so as to liquid-tightly partition the inside of the container into a space and an ink chamber. A connection member connects the diaphragm and the buckling structure at their center. Electrodes are provided at both ends of the buckling structure to generate thermal stress therein by supplying electric current for buckling and consequently to apply pressure to ink in the ink chamber for discharging.

Ink jet head compact and allowing ink to be discharged with great force

Method of forming a complex, minute three-dimensional structure, known as micromachining, which includes forming a plurality of thin films at least one of which is provided as a temporary layer composed of a lower layer made of an organic material and an upper layer made of an amphoteric metal material which is formed on the lower layer; and selectively removing the temporary layer to provide a three-dimensional structure. The temporary layer may comprise a composite sacrificial layer of photoresist and aluminum.

Method of forming a microstructure

An ink jet printer performs a control of a supply of electric power for each heating element based on a temperature dependency of a resistance value by monitoring its resistance value while ink is being discharged. Accordingly, the ink jet printer permits a damage of the heating element and a discharge inferior caused by a difference in characteristics in heating elements, ambient temperature, etc., to be suppressed. Additionally, as the temperature of the heating element is not detected directly, the ink jet printer permits high speed control of the electric value, thereby permitting high speed printing.

Ink jet printer and method of adjusting the same

A casing is attached to a nozzle plate so that a hollow cavity is formed between the nozzle plate having a nozzle orifice and the casing. Three buckling structure bodies are arranged in the hollow cavity. Each of the buckling structure bodies has both ends fixedly attached to the casing via an attach member so that the center portion can be displaced. A power source is provided which applies a compressive stress to the interior of the buckling structure bodies to buckle the buckling structure bodies by the compressive stress and to displace the center portion. As a result, the ink jet head is capable of implementing a large discharge force while maintaining a compact size.

Ink jet head, method of using thereof and method of manufacturing thereof

A deformable mirror for reflecting a light beam incident thereon of the present invention includes: a flexible member which has a reflective surface and is flexibly deformable; a substrate having a reference surface which faces the flexible member; and a driving section for making the flexible member adhere to the reference surface of the substrate, thereby deforming the reflective surface of the flexible member to correspond to the reference surface. The shape of the reference surface is designed in such a manner that the light beam is provided with a spherical aberration when the reflective surface adheres to the reference surface.

Deformable mirror and method for fabricating the same and apparatus

A pressure generating member applies a pressure to an ink, the member having a symmetric configuration and including a buckling body. The buckling body may include a radially extending ribbed portion on its upper surface and no buckling layer beneath it. A heater layer is interposed between insulating layers for heating the buckling body, the buckling body having its peripheral edge portion fixed on a substrate. A center portion of the buckling body is buckled by being heated. An orifice plate is arranged so as to cover the pressure generating member with interposition of a gap defining a cavity for the ink. The orifice plate is provided with a nozzle serving as an ink discharge outlet located in a portion of the orifice plate opposite to the pressure generating member.

Diaphragm type ink jet head having a high degree of integration and a

An ink jet of the present invention includes a nozzle plate having a nozzle orifice, a substrate having an opening communicating with the nozzle orifice, an ink discharge plate having a center portion positioned in the nozzle orifice of the nozzle plate and the opening, and both ends supported by being sandwiched between the nozzle plate and the substrate, the center portion being closer to the nozzle plate than the both ends, and a compressive member for applying a compressive force in the axis direction of the ink jet plate so that the center portion of the ink discharge plate is deformed towards the nozzle orifice by buckling. Because of this structure, the ink discharge plate is always buckled towards the nozzle orifice, and forms an ink droplet without erroneous operation.

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Tenri, Japan

Shingo Abe