An optical beam splitting method and an optical beam splitting/modulation method.

摘要

An optical beam splitting method and optical beam splitting/modulating method for recording halftone plate images on a recording material through controlling a light exposing device by image signals obtained by photoelectric manipulation of an original image. Two light beam splitters (8 and 9) are used so that a single light beam can be split into a plurality of split light beams which are lined up in two rows and shifted by one-half pitch with respect to each other and then modulated in multi-channel ultrasonic modulators (10 and 11), one row of the light beams being modulated with a delay without causing crosstalk. The number of split beams to be modulated is approximately doubled compared to a conventional system, and the size of the dots on the recording material can be decreased so that the image resolution is remarkably improved.