Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba

Yuu Kondou

Tomio Ono

Nobukazu Suzuki

Masao Yamamoto

Shuji Yamada

Motoya Kanda

Ken Uchida

Hirokazu Niki

Akinori Hongu

Shinji Tsuruta

Kunihiko Sasaki

Yoshiko Kanazawa

Koji Hashimoto

Mamoru Izumi

Koji Hasimoto

In a fuel cell comprising a stack having superposed a plurality of electromotive parts composed of a fuel electrode, an oxidizing electrode, and an electrolyte layer nipped by the two electrodes and using a liquid fuel as the fuel for the fuel cell, this invention contemplates forming a liquid fuel introducing path destined to be directly exposed to the liquid fuel on terminal surfaces of the component parts of the electromotive parts in a direction perpendicular to the flow of an oxidizing gas along at least one of the outer peripheral surfaces of the stack including the terminal surface of the fuel electrode and lying parallelly to the flow of the oxidizing gas and enabling the liquid fuel in the liquid fuel introducing path to be supplied to the fuel electrodes by a capillary attraction. A fuel cell provided with means for recovery of the water produced by the cell reaction in the oxidizing electrodes is also disclosed, which fuel cell effects the removal of the water produced in the oxidizing electrodes during the operation of the fuel cell by a capillary attraction generated by two porous members, i.e. a first porous member disposed in the oxidizing electrodes and a second porous member adjoined to the first porous member and possessed of a smaller average pore diameter than the first porous member.

Fuel cell

In a fuel cell comprising a stack having superposed a plurality of electromotive parts composed of a fuel electrode, an oxidizing electrode, and an electrolyte layer nipped by the two electrodes and using a liquid fuel as the fuel for the fuel cell, this invention contemplates forming a liquid fuel introducing path destined to be directly exposed to the liquid fuel on terminal surfaces of the component parts of the electromotive parts in a direction perpendicular to the flow of an oxidizing gas along at least one of the outer peripheral surfaces of the stack including the terminal surface of the fuel electrode and lying parallelly to the flow of the oxidizing gas and enabling the liquid fuel in the liquid fuel introducing path to be supplied to the fuel electrodes by a capillary attraction. A fuel cell provided with means for recovery of the water produced by the cell reaction in the oxidizing electrodes is also disclosed, which fuel cell effects the removal of the water produced in the oxidizing electrodes during the operation of the fuel cell by a capillary attraction generated by two porous members.

An electrostriction actuator comprises upper and lower electrostriction boards, having electrodes individually on either side thereof, and a conductive shim interposed between the inside electrodes. The actuator has a fixed end at one end thereof and a free end for bending movement at the other end. An amplifier for supplying driving voltage to the actuator is an inverted amplifier, whose output terminal is connected to the shim, so that an output voltage is supplied to the inside electrodes. The outside electrode of the upper electrostriction board is connected to a power source (not shown) for supplying constant voltage to the amplifier, and the outside electrode of the lower electrostriction board is connected to a power source (not shown) for supplying constant voltage to the amplifier.

Displacement generating apparatus

The invention is concerned with the miniaturization of construction of solid state imaging devices used in electric cameras, endoscopes or the like. A flexible printed circuit board assembled with some peripheral components thereon is attached to a side surface of a solid state imaging element to expose the element directly to incident light. The element is composed of a CCD chip and a light transparent cover sized about same as the CCD chip, and both are electrically connected using conduction bumps.

Miniaturized solid state imaging device

A swing-driven solid-state imaging device is disclosed which has a CCD image sensor for receiving incident image light and producing an electrical image signal, a stacking piezoelectric element serving as an actuator for vibrating the image sensor on a plane substantially perpendicular to the image light to thereby cause the image sensor to periodically shift to different sampling positions at different points of time in one frame period in an image sensing mode, and a package structure for receiving the image sensor and piezoelectric element. This package structure includes a base plate and a socket plate, spaced apart from and facing each other, and two arrays of flexible conductive support leads which serve as a suspension mechanism for elastically supporting the socket plate above the base plate and also serve as a part of electrical signal transmission wires for the image sensor and piezoelectric element. The image sensor is adapted to be mounted on the socket plate. The piezoelectric element is coupled to the base plate and socket plate and vibrates the latter plate. Provision of the flexible support leads prevents the weight of the image sensor from being directly applied to the piezoelectric element, thereby ensuring efficient vibration generation by the piezoelectric element.

Swing-driven solid-state imaging device with elastic suspension

Growing community of inventors

Yokohama, Japan

Yuu Kondou