Patent ID: 7564508

Claim:
A light path shift device, comprising: a plurality of light path shift elements including, a liquid crystal layer held between at least two opposite, transparent substrates, said liquid crystal layer being homeotropically aligned and operative to form a chiral smectic C phase, and a plurality of electrodes providing an electric field in an effective region of the liquid crystal layer in a horizontal direction, the electrodes including, a plurality of transparent line electrodes formed on the at least two substrates one parallel to each other, a dielectric layer being formed between a plane of the transparent line electrodes and the liquid crystal layer, the transparent line electrodes being connected in series by a plurality of resistors, each of the resistors having an L-shape corresponding to a long side and a short side of the rectangular effective region of each of the light path shift elements, a longitudinal portion and a lateral portion of each of the L-shaped resistors adjusted so that potential drops between every two adjacent transparent line electrodes on the L-shaped resistors are equal, wherein a light path passes through the effective region, and the plurality of the light path shift elements are stacked so that adjacent pairs of the effective regions of the plurality of the light path shift elements are separated by a boundary line therebetween when being viewed along the direction of light propagation.