Reversible or irreversible production of an image

A process for the production of a reversible or irreversible image comprising the steps of:

• (a) providing a nonphotoconductive recording layer comprising an organic material which solidifies in the form of glass and has permanent dipoles, and exhibits nematic liquid crystalline, smectic liquid crystalline, chiral smectic liquid crystalline, or enantiotropic, ferroelectric smectic liquid crystalline behavior;
• (b) imagewise exposing the recording layer to an electric field while heating the recording layer to a temperature above the glass transition temperature of the recording layer whereby the dipoles are oriented or reoriented to conform to the imagewise electric field resulting in a pattern of surface charges corresponding to the imagewise exposure,
• (c) cooling the recording layer to a temperature below the glass transition temperature whereby the orientation of the dipoles remains as formed during the exposing step, and
• (d) developing the image on the recording layer with a solid or liquid toner.

The method of forming a two color image which comprises the steps of:

• (a) providing a nonphotoconductive recording layer comprising an organic material which solidifies in the form of glass and has permanent dipoles,
• (b) imagewise exposing the recording layer to an electric field while heating the recording layer to a temperature above the glass transition temperature of the recording layer whereby the dipoles are oriented or reoriented to conform to the imagewise electric field resulting in a pattern of surface charges corresponding to the imagewise exposure,
• (c) cooling the recording layer to a temperature below the glass transition temperature whereby the orientation of the dipoles remains as formed during the exposing step,
• (d) repeating the process of steps (b) and (c) utilizing an external electric filed which has an opposite polarity to that used in step (b) whereby both negative and positive charges remain on the recording layer one corresponding exactly to the original image and the other being a negative thereof, and
• (e) developing the image with two solid or liquid toners each of said two toners being of different color, and of opposite electric charge.

A process for the production of multicolor images by successively producing residual electrical polarization images for each of the primary colors of an image which comprises

• (a) providing a nonphotoconductive recording layer comprising an organic material which solidifies in the form of glass and has permanent dipoles,
• (b) imagewise exposing the recording layer to an electric field while heating the recording layer to a temperature above the glass transition temperature of the recording layer whereby the dipoles are oriented or reoriented to conform to the imagewise electric field resulting in a pattern of surface charges corresponding to the imagewise exposure,
• (c) cooling the recording layer to a temperature below the glass transition temperature whereby the orientation of the dipoles remains as formed during the exposing step,
• (d) developing the image on the recording layer with a liquid or solid toner of one primary color,
• (e) transferring the toner of said primary color to another surface,
• (f) cleaning the recording layer by removing said toner residues and deleting the image developed by the primary color toner such that those dipoles oriented or reoriented in step (b) can once again be oriented or reoriented, and
• (g) repeating each of steps (a) through (f) for a second and for a third primary color.