| 摘要 |
In a multi-beam scanning device and method of the present invention, a semiconductor laser array having a plurality of light emitting parts emitting multiple laser beams is provided. A rotary deflector deflects the laser beams emitted by the light emitting parts of the semiconductor laser array. The deflected laser beams from the rotary deflector is focused onto a scanned surface to form a plurality of beam spots that are separated on the scanned surface in a sub-scanning direction, the scanned surface being scanned simultaneously with the plurality of beam spots in a main scanning direction by a rotation of the rotary deflector. The laser array is configured such that the light emitting parts are arrayed along a line that is at an inclination angle phi to the sub-scanning direction, the inclination angle phi measured in degrees and meeting the conditions )<=phi<90, and that a scanning line pitch P, an array pitch rho of the light emitting parts of the laser array and a parameter K defined by the equation K=0.82lambd/omegaz, where lambd is a wavelength of the emitted laser beams and omegaz is a target beam spot diameter in the sub-scanning direction, satisfy the following conditions: 0.01<K.P/(rho.cos phi)<0.30 0.011<K<0.030.
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