Patent ID: 7190483

Claim:
An image recorder optically scanning an image recording medium in a main scanning direction and a subscanning direction for recording an image on said image recording medium, comprising: a light source emitting a first light beam; a spatial light modulator dividing said first light beam into a plurality of second light beams arranged at least in said subscanning direction while modulating said plurality of second light beams in response to image signals; a focusing optical system for focusing said plurality of second light beams on a recording medium; and a main scanning system for scanning said recording medium with said plurality of second light beams in said main scanning direction, wherein said plurality of second light beams constitute a plurality of beam subsets, each beam subset consists of N adjacent light beams in said subscanning direction, where the number N is an integer of at least two, and said plurality of light beams belonging to each said beam subset are synchronously modulated by a single image signal for a single pixel so that each pixel on said recording medium is recorded by a single beam subset, whereby power density for recording each pixel is increased in response to the square of the number N.