Patent ID: 7193761

Claim:
A light beam scanning apparatus, comprising: beam generation and processing means for generating a beam and converting the beam into collimated light; calculation and control means for calculating scanning periods and beam energy for intervals between beam spots arranged on a scanning object along a scanning line, controlling operation periods and diffraction amounts of pixels of a light modulator, which diffracts and modulates the beam emitted from the beam generation and processing means, according to the calculated scanning periods and beam energy; diffraction and focusing means for diffracting and modulating the collimated light, which is emitted by the beam generation and processing means, according to control of the calculation and control means on the operation periods and diffraction amounts of the pixels of the light modulator, and focusing a plurality of diffracted beams; and scanning and processing means for scanning the plurality of beams, which are obtained by the diffraction and focusing means, while moving the plurality of diffracted beams at uniform velocity.