Image forming apparatus with a light shutter of the G-H type liquid crystal

Claim 1

An image forming apparatus comprising: a light source; photosensitive means operated such that a portion of a charged surface thereof which is exposed with light from said light source is discharged; exposing means, arranged between said light source and said photosensitive means, for forming a desired image upon exposure by light from said light source and for forming a latent image corresponding to the desired image on said photosensitive means, said exposing means comprising a guest-host effect liquid crystal shutter, said guest-host effect liquid crystal shutter including a pair of opposing substrates, electrodes formed on inner surfaces of said pair of opposing substrates, respectively, to provide a plurality of electrically controllable shutter portions, aligning films formed on exposed portions of the inner surfaces of said pair of opposing substrates and said electrodes, respectively, and a frequency driven liquid crystal which contains a dichroic dye and is sealed between said aligning films, to form a liquid crystal layer, the molecules of said liquid crystal and said dichoric dye being homogeneously aligned, and a polarizing plate being arranged which has a polarization axis extending parallel to the longer axes of the molecules of said liquid crystal, said shutter shielding the light from said light source when a voltage is not applied across said electrodes, and said shutter passing the light from said light source when a voltage is applied across said electrodes; developing means for developing the latent image formed on said photosensitive means to a visible image; and recording means for transcribing the visible image from said photosensitive means to a recording medium.