Development of a liquid crystal photo fabrication system

Reduction of fabrication and operational costs has become an important issue in today's laser scanning photo-fabrication system. In this paper, a novel liquid crystal-type photo-fabrication system (LC-PFS) that does not require a laser will be proposed. It will be shown that this system is useful for three-dimensional visualization of CAD and CT image data. In this study, the design indices for a double-layered STN (DSTN) liquid crystal panel for electrically rewriting exposure mask were first clarified by numerical analysis. Then the optimum design condition for the liquid crystal panel that maximizes the contrast ratio (hardening sensitivity corrected contrast) was experimentally obtained. Finally, a liquid crystal panel with a diagonal dimension of 11.4 inches and 1.9 x 10(5) pixels was fabricated. Using LC-PFS test equipment with the forementioned panel, a real-sized skeleton was created to demonstrate the advantage of this system.