Applying an electric charge to the liquid crystals causes the molecules they are made up of to realign themselves, altering the transparency of that layer. (The screens of portable computers work in a similar way.) The result is that a high-resolution negative copy of the moving image is formed in the liquid-crystal layer.
This negative is illuminated from the front by an arc lamp, and the light from this lamp passes through the transparent regions of the liquid-crystal layer to the middle layer.
Dr Bard and his colleagues have developed a novel form of memory that consists of a thin layer of organic liquid crystal sandwiched between two sheets of glass.