Patent ID: 7956882
Filing Date: 2011-06-07
Classification: B41J,G02B,G03G,H04N

Abstract:
1. A multi-beam scanning device, comprising: a light source part having a plurality of light emitting sources, the light emitting sources being monolithically arranged in a surface perpendicular to an optical axis; a light deflection part configured to deflect a plurality of light beams from the light source part in a group and scan an image carrier surface; and an image-formation optical system where lateral magnification is set so that beam spots of the plural light beams are arranged to be spaced at a designated pitch in a sub-scanning direction on the image carrier surface so as to match with a scanning line pitch corresponding to a recording density of the image carrier surface; wherein the image carrier surface is moved in the sub-scanning direction corresponding to main scanning by the light deflection part; and image forming is implemented so that a boundary part of a scanning area scanned on a first surface of the light deflection part and a boundary part of a scanning area scanned on a neighboring surface are overlapped on the image carrier surface, and wherein the boundary parts are overlapped at least by one scanning line gap on the image carrier surface, and wherein another part of the scanning area scanned on the first surface of the light deflection part is not overlapped on the image carrier surface, and wherein said multi-beam scanning device is arranged such that a non-overlapped region is formed on the image carrier surface by scanning a group of beam spots arrayed with a pitch of one line on the first surface of the light deflection part, and an overlapped region is formed on the image carrier surface by scanning groups of beam spots each with a pitch of plural lines, with one of the groups being scanned on the first surface and another one of the groups being scanned on the neighboring surface, and wherein the pitches of plural lines are between adjacent beam spots on the respective first and neighboring surfaces of the light deflection part.