Light pipe valve liquid crystal transmissive display for direct imaging on photosensitive materials

A method for producing a liquid crystal display, the steps comprising:

• applying a transparent conductive coating to the inner surface to a transparent, non-conductive, first sheet and to a substantially opaque, non-conductive second sheet, the latter of which has a plurality of discrete transparent channels formed therethrough, said coating being applied to said second sheet so as to separate said coating into discrete character forming segments, each of which overlie one of said transparent channels;
• securing to said coatings on each of said sheets, means for electrically coupling said coatings to an external power source;
• sealing a normally transparent liquid crystal material between said inner surfaces of said non-conductive sheets;
• and
• securing a linear polarizer sheet to the outer surface of each of said non-conductive sheets.

A liquid crystal light pipe display for reproducing alphanumeric characters on the photosensitive surface of a photocopy machine from data provided by an external information source, comprising:

• a non-conductive, transparent first sheet and a non-conductive substantially opaque second sheet each having substantially planar inner and outer surfaces, said non-conductive sheets being disposed adjacent to one another with their inner surfaces opposing one another in spaced-apart relationship separated by a sealed-in, normally transparent, liquid crystal material, said non-conductive sheets each having a transparent conductive electrical coating disposed on said inner surface thereof with at least said conductive coating of said second non-conductive sheet comprising a plurality of discrete character forming segments having means connected thereto for electrically coupling said segments to the external information source, said second non-conductive sheet having a plurality of discrete transparent light pipes formed therethrough, each of which is aligned with one of said character-forming segments;
• and
• first and second linear polarizer sheets, said first polarizer sheet being secured to the outer surface of said first non-conductive sheet and said second polarizer sheet being secured to the outer surface of said second non-conductive sheet, said light pipes being disposed transversely to the movement of the photosensitive surface of the photocopy machine, wherein said second opaque sheet is disposed adjacent to the photoconductive surface, so that the transparent light pipes are substantially directly coupled to the surface, and the characters imaged by the light pipes onto the surface are formed substantially without blooming.