Patent ID: 7283149

Claim:
An optical head comprising: light emitting elements which are aligned in a plurality of lines, extending in the main scanning direction of an image carrier and being arranged in parallel with each other in the sub scanning direction of the image carrier, so that said light emitting elements are arranged in two-dimensional zigzag fashion; and storage means for storing image data and outputting the image data to said light emitting elements, wherein: pixels on said image carrier are exposed by the light emitting elements aligned in one line and exposed again by the light emitting elements aligned in the next line after the movement of said image carrier, and in the same manner, said pixels are sequentially exposed by the light emitting elements on another line after the movement of said image carrier so as to achieve multiple exposure of the pixels, pixels are capable of being exposed with gradational outputs, and pixels to be exposed by light emitting elements and pixels not to be exposed by light emitting elements are arranged in the zigzag fashion in said sub scanning direction on said image carrier, and wherein said storage means comprise first storage means each of which outputs image data to light emitting elements in the corresponding line and second storage means each of which transfer the image data to the next first storage means without outputting the image data to the light emitting elements.