Patent ID: 7570279

Claim:
An optical scanning apparatus, comprising: a light source which emits a light beam; a first through an N-th deflection mirror surfaces (where N is a natural number satisfying N≧2) which are disposed for free pivoting about main scanning/deflection axes which are independent of each other; and a mirror driver which drives the first through the N-th deflection mirror surfaces and makes the first through the N-th deflection mirror surfaces pivot about the main scanning/deflection axes, wherein the light beam from the light source impinges upon the first deflection mirror surface, and after deflected at least once or more times by each one of the first through the N-th deflection mirror surfaces, the light beam is emitted from one of the first through the N-th deflection mirror surfaces toward a surface-to-be-scanned, and wherein with one of the first through the N-th deflection mirror surfaces serving as a reference deflection mirror surface, the mirror driver drives the first through the N-th deflection mirror surfaces to pivot such that each deflection mirror surface except for the reference deflection mirror surface deflects the light beam in a predetermined direction when the deflection angle of the light beam deflected by the reference deflection mirror surface in the predetermined direction becomes the maximum deflection angle.