Patent ID: 6865003

Claim:
A multibeam exposure head that performs exposure recording on a recording material that is relatively moved in a main scanning direction, comprising: a beam emitting unit having a plurality of beam emitting port rows each of which is formed by arranging a plurality of beam emitting ports at a predetermined interval in a row; and an angle changing unit that changes a tilt angle of a row direction of said plurality of beam emitting port rows of said beam emitting unit with respect to a subscanning direction that is perpendicular to a beam emitting direction and said main scanning direction, wherein said angle changing unit has a function of performing switching between a first exposure recording mode and at least one other exposure recording mode, wherein said first exposure recording mode performs said exposure recording by setting said tilt angle at a first angle in such a way that a first scanning line group having a predetermined line interval and being formed on said recording material by multiple beams emitted from one of said plurality of beam emitting port rows, and at least one other scanning line group having the same line interval as said predetermined line interval and being formed on said recording material by multiple beams emitted from at least one other row of remainders of said plurality of beam emitting port rows are spaced apart from each other without superimposing, and each distance between adjacent scanning line groups becomes substantially equal to said predetermined line interval, and wherein said at least one other exposure recording mode performs said exposure recording by setting said tilt angle at at least one other angle different from said first angle in such a way that each scanning line in said at least one other scanning line group enters between adjacent scanning lines in said first scanning line group, and a line interval in a total scanning line group formed by said at least one other scanning line group and said first scanning line group become a substantially equal interval.