light absorbing inactive areas of the imod fig4 shows a schematic drawing wherein various layers making up thin film black mask in accordance with one embodiment of the invention is shown referring to fig4 a thin film black mask 402 shown fabricated on substrate 400 the black mask 402 comprises three layers of film which includes a chrome layer 404 a silicon oxide layer 406 and an aluminum layer 408 various materials may be selected to produce the black mask in one embodiment the films which make up the black mask are the same films which are used in the fabrication of the active imod components thus making it possible to use the same deposition parameters to fabricate the inactive and the active components the various stages in the manufacture of the thin film black mask 402 will now be described with reference to fig5 a 5g of the drawings referring to fig5 a after an initial preparatory step wherein a glass substrate 500 is prepared e g cleaned a reflective chrome layer 502 is deposited e g by sputter coating it onto substrate 500 in one embodiment the thickness of chrome layer 502 may be about 60 angstroms thereafter.