Patent ID: 7218432

Claim:
An optical scanning apparatus, comprising: a light source that emits a plurality of light fluxes; a coupling optical system that couples the light fluxes to an optical system subsequent to the coupling optical system; an optical deflector that deflects the light fluxes in a main scanning direction; and a scanning optical system that is the optical system subsequent to the coupling optical system and images the light fluxes deflected by the optical deflector on a scan target surface, wherein the light source is a surface emitting laser provided with a plurality of apertures that limit a plurality of light emitting regions arranged in a two-dimensional array, the apertures are arranged to correspond to the respective light emitting regions in a one-to-one correspondence, and the scanning optical system satisfies conditions of Dm·|βm|<ωm and Ds·|βs|<ωs where Dm denotes a width of each of the apertures in the main scanning direction, Ds denotes a width of each aperture in the sub-scanning direction, βm denotes a magnification of both the coupling optical system and the scanning optical system in the main scanning direction, βs denotes a magnification of both the coupling optical system and the scanning optical system in the sub-scanning direction, ωm denotes the size of an optical spot in the main scanning direction formed on the scan target surface, and ωs denotes the size of the optical spot in the sub-scanning direction formed on the scan target surface.