Patent ID: 7248278

Claim:
A printing system comprising: a laser source to generate a light beam; a linear diffractive spatial light modulator assembly to diffract light from the laser source according to an applied electric field; illumination optics for focusing the light beam onto the spatial light modulator assembly; an image plane having a photosensitive surface; imaging optics disposed in a light path between the spatial light modulator assembly and the image plane to expand the light beam and image the light beam simultaneously on a substantially linear portion of the photosensitive surface, wherein the imaging optics comprises (i) a Fourier transform lens configured such that light from each beam component converges around a corresponding point of a back focal plane of the Fourier transform lens, and (ii) an optical component for inverse Fourier transformation of light from the back focal plane to the image plane; and a drum covered by the photosensitive surface, wherein the drum is configured to rotate the photosensitive surface such that the substantially linear portion imaged by the light beam is scanned across an area of the photosensitive surface, wherein the laser source comprises an array of a plurality of laser emitters, and the illumination and imaging optics are configured to compose a corresponding plurality of images at the image plane, wherein the illumination optics comprises a plurality of lenses configured to stitch together beam components from the plurality of emitters to form the light beam, lenses configured to magnify each said beam component, and an optical component to bend said beam components so that said beam components are incident to the spatial light modulator assembly at different incident angles.