a translucent white surface and is positioned in front of backlight 52 alternately the fea could be fabricated on the translucent white substrate and the micromirror array fabricated on the faceplate however the surface of the mirror that is coated with an absorbing coating 53 would be exposed when the mirror was deflected to its fully actuated or white state which would reduce contrast ratio field emitters 54 emit primary electrons 56 that are accelerated through a potential v a towards an anode layer 58 coated on the back of substrate 48 the primary electrons pass through a collector grid 60 and selectively strike hinges 62 possibly petals 64 and sem pad 66 causing secondary electrons to be ejected and collected by collector grid 60 to drive the mirrors between their quiescent and fully actuated positions in this configuration the uniform electric field is established between collector grid 60 and anode layer 58 and the actuating attractive force is generated between mirrors 44 and collector grid 60 another embodiment that is very similar to the one depicted in fig1 except that the mirror 39 s quiescent position is the fully upright position is shown in fig6 this type of structure can be fabricated using liga techniques the uniform electric field is established between a collector grid 70 and a reference electrode 72 on the cell faceplate 74 but the actuating attractive force is generated between mirrors 76 and collector grid 70 so that the mirrors are pulled down to a fully actuated or flat position in order to deflect the mirror petals.