Patent · US Expired

Optical scanning device, image forming apparatus and optical scanning method

US6233081A · kind A · utility

41Cited by
18References
80Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateDec 21, 1999
Grant dateMay 15, 2001
Priority date
Expiry dateDec 21, 2019

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC G)Physics
  • CPC primaryG02B27/58
  • WIPO fieldOptics
  • WIPO sectorInstruments

Abstract

An optical scanning device includes a light source, a coupling lens, an optical deflector, an aperture and a scanning image-forming optical system. The central wavelength of the light flux emitted by the light source is less than about 680 nm, and NAO, .kappa., .beta..sub.0 satisfy .beta..sub.0 /(NAO.cndot..kappa.)<100, and NAO satisfies 0.18<NAO<0.35, where: NAO represents the light-source-side numerical aperture of the coupling lens; .kappa. represents the ratio A/D of the larger diameter A of the diameters, in a main scanning direction and a sub-scanning direction, of the opening of the aperture relative to the diameter D of the light flux emitted from the coupling lens; and .beta..sub.0 represents the larger one of the lateral magnifications, in the main scanning direction and the sub-scanning direction, of the entire optical system with respect to an optical path extending from the light source to the surface to be scanned, and including a point of the image surface, at which point the image height is 0.

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.