Axial line scanning device for display and printing applications

Summary form only given. Conventional two dimensional scanning methods operate by a two-axis variable mirror system to deflect one laser beam over the whole image field. Hence there occur two different deflection frequencies, one of which is the critical horizontal deflection frequency in the kHz regime and the other one is the uncritical vertical frequency of about 100 Hz. The horizontal deflection frequency is difficult to achieve with mechanical means because precisely manufactured polygon mirrors must be employed to achieve a pointing stability good enough for printing and display applications A number of devices have been developed recently to find alternatives to the conventional method. The axial line scanner intends to resolve this problem by utilizing a different scanning method: always one complete line is imaged in one scanning step and to obtain a complete two dimensional image it is thus just necessary to shift the lines vertically.