A visual display system and a method for displaying information. The information displayed on the visual display system may be substantially or entirely immune to stray electric fields.

The present invention provides a printer and media solution that is conducive to briefcase-compatible compactness, battery operation, and media reuse. The printer consists of a low power, electrode array that images the surface of a paper-like, rewritable sheet. The sheet is responsive to pixel-sized electric fields produced by each electrode, resulting in a pixel array that is imaged in response to field polarity. The sheet is coated with a rewritable colorant that is a highly energy efficient, bistable, bi-modal molecular layer, requiring energy only to change an image, not to hold or illuminate it.

An ink jet printing apparatus for producing a non-emissive display having a plurality of pixels on a substrate and the pixels being defined by intersecting electrodes includes a plurality of reservoirs containing fluids including solid-phase field-driven particles; a print head located in a printing position having at least one nozzle connected to a reservoir; and producing a signal associated with the position of the substrate relative to the print head. The substrate is moved in a first direction to the printing position in response to the signal. The signal causes the print head to eject drops of the fluids from the nozzles at the intersecting electrodes on the substrate and for providing relative movement in a second direction between the print head and the substrate for fluids to be transferred to subsequent intersecting electrodes. The field-driven solid-phase particles in the fluid transferred to the substrate change optical density in response to an applied electric voltage between the associated intersecting electrodes to produce the desired optical density in the non-emissive display.

An electronic printing apparatus is disclosed for forming images on a receiver which stores a digital image. The apparatus uses a receiver that includes field-driven particles in a matrix that change optical density in response to an applied electric field, a substrate, and a conductive portion disposed between the matrix and the substrate. The apparatus further includes an array of electrodes cooperating with the conductive portion for selectively applying electric fields across the matrix at the image forming position so that the field-driven particles change optical density, and electronic control circuitry electrically coupled to the array and the conductive portion for selectively applying voltages to the array so that fields are applied at the image forming position to field-driven particles at particular locations on the receiver corresponding to pixels in the stored image whereby the electrodes produce an image in the receiver corresponding to the stored image.

Apparatus for forming an image, comprising a storage for storing a digitized image and a receiver. The receiver includes a matrix, a thermomeltable material disposed in the matrix having a transition temperature range which is above room temperature wherein the viscosity of the thermomeltable material decreases substantially from below to above the transition temperature range, and field-driven particles immersed in the thermomeltable material, so that the particles change optical densities in response to an applied electric field when the thermomeltable material is above the transition temperature range and is stable at temperatures below the transition temperature range. An array of electrodes selectively applies electric fields at an image forming position on the receiver. The apparatus heats the receiver to control the temperature of the receiver to control the response of the field-driven particles in the receiver. Electronic control circuitry coupled to the heater controls the temperature of the receiver when an electric field is applied and coupled to the electrode array for selectively applying voltages to the electrode array so that electric fields are applied at the image forming position at particular locations on the receiver corresponding to pixels in response to the stored image whereby the electrodes produces an image in the receiver corresponding to the stored image.