Patent ID: 8452220

Claim:
A laser fixing device, which is for use in an electrophotographic image forming apparatus comprising a feature to form a monochrome image or a color image, the laser fixing device comprising: a carrying device for carrying a sheet; and a laser array section which is made up of a plurality of laser sources arrayed across a direction in which the sheet is carried, the plurality of laser sources irradiating a non-fixed toner image, which is attached to the sheet that is being carried by the carrying device, with a laser beam so that the non-fixed toner image is fused and fixed to the sheet, wherein, a sheet carrying speed and an irradiation region length are set so that the following inequality is satisfied tn≧ 0.259·mt 1.5139 , where mt is a maximum level of an attached-toner amount per unit area of the sheet (mg/cm 2 ) which is determined for the image forming apparatus, and tn is an irradiation region crossing time (msec), which is found by dividing the irradiation region length by the sheet carrying speed, the irradiation region length being a length, in the direction in which the sheet is carried, of a region on the sheet which region is irradiated with the laser beam, and where mt is less than or equal to 1.5.