IMAGING DEVICE

摘要

An imaging device is described for projecting individually controllable laser beams onto an imaging surface that is movable relative to the device in a reference X-direction. The device includes a plurality of semiconductor chips each of which comprises a plurality of laser beam emitting elements arranged in a two dimensional main array of M rows and N columns. The elements in each row have a uniform spacing Ar and the elements in each column have a uniform spacing ac. The chips are mounted on a support in such a manner that each pair of chips that are adjacent one another in a reference Y-direction, transverse to the X- direction, are offset from one another in the X-direction, and, when activated continuously, the emitted laser beams of the two chips of said pair trace on the imaging surface a set of parallel lines that extend in the X-direction and are substantially uniformly spaced in the Y- direction. In addition to the M rows and N columns of elements of the main array, each chip comprises at least one additional column on each side of the main array, each column containing at least one selectively operable laser emitting element capable of compensating for any misalignment in the Y-direction in the relative positioning of the adjacent chips on the support.