Patent ID: 6169565
Filing Date: 2001-01-02
Classification: B41J,G02F

Abstract:
A printing system comprising: a laser diode array having a plurality of multimode emitters; a transmissive phase grating spatial light modulator which diffracts light from said laser diode array according to an applied electric field; array direction illumination optics for flood illuminating said spatial light modulator with light from said laser diode array; cross array illumination optics for limiting divergence of incident light from said laser diode array and focussing said light onto said spatial light modulator; an imaging lens having an internal fourier plane, said imaging lens imaging light from said spatial light modulator onto an image plane; and a spatial filter having a slit, said spatial filter being located in close proximity to said fourier plane and passing designated diffracted light which corresponds to a given applied electric field; wherein said spatial light modulator comprises a plurality of independently addressable pixels, such that each pixel is an independent phase grating; and wherein each of said pixels comprises electrodes with an intra-electrode pitch less than or equal to a wavelength of incident light divided by a numerical aperture of said incident light.