Abstract: A spindle motor in which a shaft and a sleeve are supported by a radial fluid bearing and a thrust bearing in a noncontact state via a bearing clearance and are relatively driven rotatively, a lubricant reservoir having one end communicating with the bearing clearance and another end communicating with the outside is provided on an outer peripheral side of the sleeve whose inner periphery opposes the shaft, and a lubricant supplying passage, which is a clearance of the lubricant reservoir on its side which communicates with the bearing clearance, is set to a size exhibiting capillarity. Bubbles in the lubricant inside the lubricant reservoir are discharged through the clearance communicating with the outside, and the bearing clearance is automatically lubricated stably through the lubricant supplying passage by means of capillarity.

Abstract: One kind of element belonging to I group or II group and one kind of binary compound including one kind of element belonging to III group and one kind of element selected from the group consisting of S, Se, Te and O are evaporated respectively by means of a vacuum vapor deposition method or molecular beam epitaxial method to produce a ternary compound semiconductor material having a low vapor pressure, and the thus produced ternary compound semiconductor material is deposited on a substrate to form a ternary compound semiconductor thin film. Particularly, when a phosphor thin film for electroluminescence emitting blue light is to be grown, an element Sr and a binary compound Ga.sub.2 S.sub.3 are respectively evaporated by the vacuum evaporation method or molecular beam epitaxial method to deposit a ternary compound semiconductor material SrGa.sub.2 S.sub.

Abstract: An image sensor includes a photoelectric conversion element, a first MOS transistor having having a gate connected to the photoelectric conversion element, a second MOS transistor connected in series with the first transistor, and a third MOS transistor connected in series with the photoelectric conversion element, wherein the threshold voltage of the third MOS transistor is set higher than that of the second MOS transistor. In one embodiment, each of the pixels included in a second group of rows includes a photoelectric conversion element but without the first, second and third MOS transistors. A fourth MOS transistor connects a photoelectric conversion element of the second group to a photoelectric conversion element of a first group, the photoelectric conversion elements of the first group being part of pixels which contain first, second and third MOS transistors.