JPS6344623A - Liquid crystal shutter array - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To record while a photosensitive material is held in tight contact with a liquid crystal shutter array and to permit the faithful recording of image light by outputting the light subjected to on-off control in a liquid crystal through FOP. CONSTITUTION:The FOP (fiber optical plate) 50 as a transparent substrate is provided on the outside of pixel electrodes 44. Even if the parallel image light 1 projected to the liquid crystal shutter array 40 is subjected to the on-off control according to image signals by the pixel electrodes 44, said light arrives straightly at the photosensitive material 30 held in tight contact with the shutter array without being diffused by the light transparent side substrate and without being subjected to light interference, etc., by the adjacent pixels. The photosensitive material is, therefore, exposed directly by the light corresponding to the images. The recorded images are thereby made into the high-quality images corresponding to the on-off control of the pixel electrodes 44.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION (Technical Field of the Invention) The present invention relates to a liquid crystal device used as a liquid crystal light shutter, for example, by controlling the magnitude and/or application time or frequency of a voltage applied to a liquid crystal. ,
The present invention relates to the structure of a liquid crystal shutter array using a liquid crystal device configured to modulate the amount of transmitted or reflected light.

(Technical Background of the Invention and Problems Thereof) Conventionally, a technique has been developed for recording image light on a photosensitive material using a shutter array in which liquid crystal devices are arranged in, for example, a line shape. FIG. 3 shows the structure of such a liquid crystal shutter array and its recording state. That is, the parallel light 1 is irradiated onto the liquid crystal shutter array 10 which is controlled according to an image signal, and the liquid crystal shutter array 10 is
The transmitted light is turned on and off according to the image signal;b ('), and the transmitted light is transmitted through a condensing light transmitter array, such as a SELFOC lens (a product name of a gradient index lens manufactured by Nippon Sheet Glass). The 5-liquid crystal shutter array 10, which is configured to expose the photosensitive material 30 by forming an image in the array 20, has a liquid crystal 1
1 to a specified distance! i! A pair of alignment films 128 and 12[1 facing each other
A pixel electrode 13 made of a transparent material that defines the pixels of the shutter array is buried in one alignment film 11 (512B), and a positional relationship corresponding to each pixel TL pole 13 is embedded in the other alignment film 128. A light-shielding photomask 17 is embedded in the mask, and a common electrode 1 made of a transparent material is placed outside of the photomask 17.
4 are arranged in layers. Further, a transparent substrate 1511 made of glass or the like is layered on the outside of the alignment film 12B, and the common electrode 1
Transparent substrates 158 having approximately the same thickness as the transparent substrate 15[1] are layered on the outside of the transparent substrate 15[1].
Further, 1'n facing plates 16A and 1 are provided on the outside of 5A and 15B.
6B are arranged in layers. Therefore, since the parallel light 1 irradiated on the liquid crystal shutter array 10 reaches the pixel electrodes 13, the transmitted light can be reduced by electrically controlling each pixel electrode 13 and the common electrode 14 facing them. Light shielding can be controlled in cooperation with the photomask 17. The light that passes through the pixel electrodes 13 of each pixel of the night crystal shutter array 10 is formed into an ominous image by the self-photograph lens array 20 and exposed to the photosensitive material 30, and an image is optically recorded. It turns out.

Note that the parallel light 1 in FIG. 3 is not perfectly parallel light in terms of −11 degrees, so for the sake of explanation, an example in which the incident angle is set to an extreme value is shown.

When recording an image using a liquid crystal shutter array in this way, the incident light is usually parallel light, but it is not completely parallel light. If the light is not focused by a SELFOC lens array 20 or the like, the degree of light diffusion will increase and the photosensitive material 3
0, it is not possible to obtain sufficient resolution. For this reason,
Recording is performed by inserting a SELFOC lens array 20 or the like between the liquid crystal shutter array 10 and the photosensitive material 30, but this has the disadvantage that the optical system becomes larger and the device also becomes larger. .

Furthermore, since the thickness of the transparent substrate 15 on the light output side of the liquid crystal shutter array IO is thicker than the width dimension of the pixel electrode 13, the transmission of light is controlled by the pixel electrode 13 and the common electrode 14. There is also the problem that the light from each pixel in the transparent substrate 158 is mutually diffused as it progresses, and it is not possible to record an image of the product.

(From "Purpose of the Moon") This invention was made due to the circumstances mentioned above.
An object of the present invention is to provide a liquid crystal shutter array that is capable of recording high-quality images using the shutter array itself without using a special optical system outside the liquid crystal shutter array. It is in.

(Summary of the Invention) This invention comprises: a pixel electrode and a common electrode which are filled with crystal and face each other; a pair of transparent substrates sandwiching these pixel electrodes and common electrode; In a liquid crystal shutter array comprising deflection plates layered on each outer side, a photomask is layered on either one of the transparent substrates corresponding to the pixel electrode, and at least one of the pair of transparent substrates is layered. One side is FOP
It is composed of

(Embodiment of the Invention) FIG. 1 shows an embodiment of the present invention, in which a liquid crystal shutter array 40 is filled with liquid crystal 41 for a predetermined distance 1iiIt.
Alignment films 42A and 42B facing each other at (for example, 6μ)
have. Then, an alignment film 42[l at the light input end and a common electrode 43 made of a transparent material are layered, and the outer side thereof is made of a transparent material such as glass and has a thickness of 0.5 to 1.5 cm. A transparent substrate 47 with a thickness of about 0 mm is layered, and a deflection plate 48 is further layered on the outside thereof.

Further, on the light output side, a pixel electrode 44 made of a transparent material corresponding to the pixel with orientation 11U 42 A is buried, and outside of this pixel electrode 44, an FOP (FOP) as a transparent substrate is buried.
iber 0ptical plate) 50 layers. This bit of FOI"50 is sufficiently smaller than the pixel size of the pixel type bar 44, and
The light manually applied to OP50 is output as is.

A light-shielding photomask 46 is buried outside the FOP 50 in a positional relationship corresponding to the pixel electrode 44, and a deflection plate 45 is further layered outside the photomask 16.

By setting the liquid crystal shutter array having such a structure to = +0, the parallel image light 1 irradiated onto the liquid crystal shutter array 4o is controlled on and off by the pixel electrode 44 in accordance with the image signal, but the light transmitting side Since the light is not diffused by the substrate and reaches the photosensitive material 30 that is in close contact with each adjacent pixel without receiving light interference, the light corresponding to the image directly exposes the photosensitive material 30. . Therefore, the recorded image is
The result is a high-quality image that meets your needs.

The liquid crystal shutter array 40 can be a linear array as shown in FIG. In addition, in each of the above-described embodiments, the pixel li 171 and the opening of the photomask 46 are made to have the same size with a one-to-one correspondence. When the size of the lower mask 4 is made smaller than the pixel size 14, the pixel electrode 4
4 and the photomask 46 becomes easier, which is advantageous during manufacturing. In addition, the deflection plate 45 is connected to the FOP 50 and the alignment film 4.
Similar effects can be obtained regardless of the distance between 2Δ.

Note that the photomask 46 is connected to the transparent substrate I17 and the deflection plate 91.
8 or between the FOP 50 and the deflection plate 45.

(Effects of the Invention) As described above, according to the ivy array in the liquid crystal display of this invention,
Since the light that has been turned on and off in the liquid crystal section is output through the FOP, it is possible to record with a photosensitive material in close contact with the liquid crystal shutter array, and a Selfoc lens array etc. can be placed outside the liquid crystal array. Image light can be faithfully recorded without using an optical system, and the device has the advantage of being miniaturized.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a cross-sectional structural diagram showing one embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 2 (A) is a diagram for explaining a line-shaped liquid crystal shutter array, and FIG. 2 (B) is a diagram of a planar liquid crystal shutter array. FIG. 3 is a diagram showing the structure of a conventional liquid crystal shutter array and its recording state. 1... Parallel light, 10.40... Liquid crystal shack array, 11.41... 7 night crystal, 13.44... Pixel electrode pole, N. 43...Common electrode, 15A, 158.47...Transparent substrate, to 16. 16 [1,48... Deflection plate, 20... Selfoc lens array, 30... Photosensitive material, 5σ... For
. (,4> (B) $2 Fig.

Claims (3)

[Claims] (1) A pixel electrode and a common electrode filled with liquid crystal and facing each other, a pair of transparent substrates sandwiching these pixel electrodes and common electrode, and a deflection plate layered on the outside of each of these transparent substrates. In the liquid crystal shutter array, a photomask is layered on one of the transparent substrates or the common electrode in correspondence with the pixel electrode, and at least one of the pair of transparent substrates is formed using an FOP. A liquid crystal shutter array characterized by the following configuration. (2) The liquid crystal shutter array according to claim 1, wherein the pixel electrode and the opening of the photomask have a one-to-one correspondence. (3) The liquid crystal shutter array according to claim 1, wherein the size of the opening of the photomask is smaller than the size of the pixel electrode.