Driving ferroelectric liquid crystal printers via short circuiting

Claim 1

A method for driving a plurality of optical switch elements of a liquid crystal device wherein each of the optical switch elements includes a transparent ferroelectric liquid crystal material between opposed electrodes, the method comprising the steps of applying a positive or negative voltage between the opposed electrodes of each of the plurality of optical switch elements selectively during a first period so as to control the quantity of transmission light between the opposed electrodes, and effecting a short circuit by simultaneously applying a substantially zero voltage between the opposed electrodes of all of the plurality of optical switch elements during a second period so as to reduce the quantity of non-uniform existence of ions in the high dielectric material between the opposed electrodes, wherein the second period is a period at least one of before and after the first period, and the second period is a shorter time than the first period and wherein the plurality of switch elements form part of a printer for printing a desired pattern on print regions of a paper having non-print regions, and the second period wherein the substantially zero voltage is applied simultaneously between opposed electrodes of all of the plurality of optical switch elements corresponds to at least one of the non-print regions at the leading and trailing end portions of the paper among the nonprint regions of the paper.

Claim 2

A method for driving a plurality of optical switch elements of a liquid crystal device wherein each of the optical switch elements includes a transparent ferroelectric liquid crystal material between opposed electrodes, the method comprising the steps of applying a positive or negative voltage between the opposed electrodes of each of the plurality of optical switch elements selectively during a first period so as to control the quantity of transmission light between the opposed electrodes, and effecting a short circuit by simultaneously applying a substantially zero voltage between the opposed electrodes of all of the plurality of optical switch elements during a second period so as to reduce the quantity of non-uniform existence of ions in the high dielectric material between the opposed electrodes, wherein the second period is a period at least one of before and after the first period, and the second period is a shorter time than the first period and wherein the plurality of switch elements form part of a printer for printing a desired pattern on print regions of a paper having non-print regions, and the second period wherein the substantially zero voltage is applied simultaneously between opposed electrodes of all of the plurality of optical switch elements corresponds to at least one of the non-print regions at the leading and trailing end portions of the paper among the nonprint regions of the paper.