Image recording apparatus
AssigneeMinolta Co., Ltd.
InventorsEiji Yamakawa, Hideaki Ueda, Kiyofumi Hashimoto
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
An image recording device for thermally recording monochrome and color images onto reversible heat-sensitive recording mediums such as a thermal liquid crystal compound that has a cholesteric phase. A heating device, which may include a plurality of heating elements including laser diodes, is scanned across the recording medium and the temperature of the heating element corresponding to a given picture element determines the recorded color for that picture element.
Claims54
An image recording apparatus for forming an image onto a recording medium having a recording layer containing a liquid crystalline material of which a display color varies in response to a temperature of heat applied thereto and in which the display color is fixed by cooling, said image recording apparatus comprising:
- a first heater for heating the recording medium to a clearing temperature at which the liquid crystalline material exhibits an isotropic phase;
- a second heater for selectively heating the recording medium that has been heated by the first heater, said second heater having a selectable temperature;
- and
- a heater driving device for driving the second heater and for selecting a recording temperature based on a color of an image to be recorded,
- wherein the selectable temperature of the heater is set to the thus selected recording temperature, thereby selecting the display color of the recording medium.
An image recording apparatus for forming an image onto a thermally sensitive recording medium having a recording layer containing a liquid crystalline material of which a display color varies in response to a temperature of heat applied thereto, said image recording apparatus comprising:
- a first heater for heating the recording medium to a clearing temperature at which the liquid crystalline material exhibits an isotropic phase;
- a second heater for selectively heating the recording medium that has been heated by the first heater;
- a scanner for scanning the heater across the recording medium;
- and
- a temperature controller for controlling a temperature of the second heater during scanning,
- wherein the temperature controller is adapted to control a temperature of the second heater during scanning based on image data to be recorded onto the recording medium so that colors corresponding to the image data are written to the recording medium.
An image recording apparatus for forming an image onto a thermally sensitive recording medium having a recording layer containing a liquid crystalline material of which a display color varies in response to a temperature of heat applied thereto, said image recording apparatus comprising:
- a first heating device for heating the recording medium to a clearing temperature at which the liquid crystalline material exhibits an isotropic phase;
- a second heating device for heating the recording medium that has been heated by the first heater;
- a scanning device for controlling a position of application of said heating by said second heater on said recording medium;
- and
- a device for controlling a temperature of said heating on said recording medium,
- wherein the device for controlling the temperature is adapted to control a temperature of the second heating device in synchronism with the scanning device based on image data to be recorded onto the recording medium so that colors corresponding to the image data are written to the recording medium.
An image recording apparatus for forming an image onto a recording medium having a recording layer containing a liquid crystalline material of which a display color varies in response to a temperature of heat applied thereto and in which the display color is fixed by cooling, said image recording apparatus comprising:
- a first section for heating the recording medium to a clearing temperature at which the liquid crystalline material exhibits an isotropic phase;
- and
- a second section for, after the heating of the recording medium by the first section, selectively managing temperature changes of portions of the recording medium to define display colors thereof, respectively, wherein different display colors respectively correspond to different temperature changes.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.