Study on design and processing performance verification of a 600 dpi f-theta lens

Abstract

With the ever-improving requirements for printing resolution, printing speed and noise, laser printing and scanning unit based on the precision optical technology have been greatly developed in recent years. The f-theta lens is considered to be the most important element in the laser printing and scanning unit that affects the printing resolution, which can convert the computer digital data into a light signal and transmit the optical information to the laser printing and scanning system. It is a mainly composed of a light source, collimator lens, and polygon mirror. Many researches of obtaining the higher printing or scanning resolution by increasing the number of lenses have been studied, but this method will inevitably increase the volume of the entire system. In this study, a solution to optimize the optical performance of the f-theta lens was proposed and verified by a series of optical numerical investigation on the laser printing and scanning unit. The satisfactory optical performance of the optimal f-theta lens is confirmed by experimental method. In addition, the modality of the f-theta lens was verified by injection molding simulation.