The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Jul. 05, 1994
Filed:
May. 20, 1993
Sharp Kabushiki Kaisha, Osaka, JP;
Abstract
An image processing apparatus comprises a liquid modulator having a photoconductive material including an image-writing plane, a liquid crystal layer laminated on the photoconductive material, a pair of electrodes sandwiching the photoconductive material and the liquid crystal layer, and a spacer inserted between the photoconductive material and one of the electrodes. Also provided are an analog writing system for analogously writing an original image in the light modulator; a digital reading system for digitally reading the image written in the light modulator; a processing section for image-processing the read image data; a digital writing system for digitally writing processed image data in the light modulator; and, an analog reading system for analogously reading an image written in the light modulator. The liquid crystal layer is either a phase-transition type liquid crystal, a p-type smectic A liquid crystal providing a storage function, or a ferroelectric liquid crystal providing a storage function. The phase-transition type liquid crystal is selected from a group consisting of (1) a p-type cholesteric liquid crystal and (2) a mixture of p-type cholesteric liquid crystal and p-type nematic liquid crystal. The ferroelectric liquid crystal is selected from a group consisting of (1) a chiral smectic C liquid crystal, (2) a mixture of chiral smectic C liquid crystal and non-chiral smectic C liquid crystal, and (3) a mixture of chiral smectic C liquid crystal and a photoactive material.