JPH0743671A - Recorder - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To rapidly record a high definition image in a device recording the image by a scanning optical system on a recording medium occurring phase change due to heating by using a single mode semiconductor laser and a multimode semiconductor laser and orthogonally intersecting mutual polarization surfaces. CONSTITUTION:The single mode semiconductor laser 101 is controlled by a driving power source 102 according to an image signal obtained from a signal controller 103. By the multimode semiconductor laser 105, a laser beam with prescribed intensity is imparted by controlling the driving power source 106 with a controller 115. Polarization surfaces of respective laser beams obtained from the single mode laser 101 and the multimode semiconductor laser 105 are intersected orthogonally, and are synthesized easily by a polarizing beam splitter 108, and no unwanted interference, etc., occurs. The synthesized laser beam is scanned using a laser deflector 109, and the deflected laser beam whose distortion due to scanning is corrected by an f-theta lens 110 irradiates a recording medium 111.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus for outputting an image signal read from a scanner, an image signal held in an optical disk, a personal computer or the like, an information signal, etc. The present invention relates to an image recording device which outputs an image to an intermediate image carrier and optically records an image on a high resolution image carrier such as a photosensitive resin or a silver salt in the next stage.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, in a digital electrophotographic system, in order to record an information signal on a photosensitive member, a semiconductor laser beam is turned on and off according to the information signal while scanning the photosensitive member with a polygon mirror. Was there. However, in this method, it is necessary to increase the output of the laser or output for a long time when recording a high-definition image or an image at high speed, particularly when recording a large number of the same image, the durability of the laser itself is reduced. It was easy to cause problems. Further, when the images are continuously read and recorded, the same image is repeatedly read, which imposes a heavy load on the optical scanner.

R, G, and B laser light sources for color images are difficult to achieve with semiconductor lasers, which leads to an increase in size and complexity of the device.

In the analog recording system, for example, there is a system called an electrophotographic system called a screen process for obtaining an intermediate image in the form of ion recording on an intermediate transfer member. However, in this method, there is instability due to electrification of ions, and long-term memory property cannot be obtained.

Further, since the running cost is low, the conventional diazo recording method has a drawback that a three-dimensional object cannot be copied, and a color image cannot be dealt with.

On the other hand, as a conventional image-forming substance that can be used as an intermediate image carrier and is reversibly erasable and can be repeatedly used, it is sandwiched with a photochromic substance, a thermochromic substance, a magnetic recording substance, glass or the like. Liquid crystal etc. are conceivable.

However, when a photochromic substance is used as an intermediate image carrier, the recording or erasing means for the photochromic substance is light, and it is necessary to irradiate the photochromic layer with light for optically recording on the photosensitive layer. Therefore, the photochromic layer is liable to change and has a problem in durability.

Thermoreversible Ag ₂ HgI ₄ has been reported as a thermochromic substance, but since this type of material does not have a memory property, the heater must always be operated in order to retain an image, Not only is the device large and complex, but it also consumes a lot of power.

Further, a liquid crystal light valve is used,
Usually, a low-molecular smectic liquid crystal is sandwiched between glass substrates, and a laser absorption layer, etc. is provided inside the cell, and the contrast is obtained by thermally scattering the homeotropic alignment into a scattering state by external laser irradiation. However, it is difficult to form a large area due to the structure and the electric field orientation is used for erasing, so that the intermediate image carrier has a complicated structure. Further, it is difficult to directly perform thermal writing with a heating element head or the like due to the structure of the element. Since it is not possible to increase the area, a high-brightness light source is irradiated and enlarged projection is performed, but there is a defect that the intermediate image is deteriorated by the irradiation light due to low thermal stability.

As an improvement on the above-mentioned drawbacks,
There is a recording medium in which heat is recorded by irradiating a focused laser beam to a recording medium which causes a phase change by heating. As a typical example thereof, there is a method of using a polymer liquid crystal as a recording medium as disclosed in JP-A-2-550. The method using the polymer liquid crystal is excellent in that it has good recording stability, good memory property, high contrast, and a simple device configuration.

[0011]

However, in the above-mentioned conventional example, a high-power semiconductor laser is required for high-speed recording, and since such a semiconductor laser emits laser light in multimode, it is 20 μm. There is a problem that it is extremely difficult to obtain the following high resolution images.

The present invention has been made in order to solve the problems of the prior art as described above, and in an apparatus for recording an image on a recording medium which causes a phase change by heating by a scanning optical system, a single mode An object of the present invention is to provide a recording apparatus capable of recording a high-definition image at high speed by making the polarization planes of the semiconductor laser and the multimode semiconductor laser orthogonal to each other.

[0013]

That is, the present invention has a single mode semiconductor laser and a multimode semiconductor laser as a light source in an apparatus for recording an image on a recording medium which causes a phase change by heating by a scanning optical system, In addition, the recording devices are characterized in that their polarization planes are orthogonal to each other.

The present invention will be described in detail below. According to the present invention, in an apparatus for recording an image on a recording medium that causes a phase change by heating with a scanning optical system, a single-mode semiconductor laser and a multi-mode semiconductor laser are provided as light sources, and their polarization planes are made orthogonal to each other. It is possible to record a high-definition image at high speed.

In the present invention, a Te-based thin film material, a dye-based thin film material, a TeO _x -based thin film material, a Sb ₂ Se ₃ -based thin film material, a liquid crystal, a polymer liquid crystal or the like is used as a recording medium which causes a phase change by heating. However, the recording medium using the polymer liquid crystal in the recording layer is excellent in view of the recording characteristics and the image characteristics of the medium obtained by recording. Furthermore, an extremely excellent image can be obtained by using the polymer liquid crystal subjected to the alignment treatment.

As the polymer liquid crystal that can be used in the recording layer in the present invention, a material exhibiting thermotropic liquid crystallinity is suitable. As an example of this, it is used in the field of so-called side chain type polymer liquid crystal in which low molecular weight liquid crystal having methacrylic acid polymer or siloxane polymer as a main chain is pendantly added, and high strength and high elasticity heat resistant fiber and resin. It is a main chain type polymer liquid crystal such as polyester type or polyamide type. Further, a polymer liquid crystal having a phase showing SmC ^* in which asymmetric carbon is introduced in the polymer liquid crystal and exhibiting ferroelectricity is also preferably used.

Specific examples of the polymer liquid crystal will be illustrated below.
The present invention is not limited to these.

[0018]

[Chemical 1]

[0019]

[Chemical 2]

As a solvent for coating and forming these, dichloroethane, DMF, cyclohexane and the like, tetrahydrofuran (THF), acetone, ethanol and other polar or non-polar solvents or mixed solvents thereof are used. It goes without saying that these can be selected depending on factors such as solubility in the polymer liquid crystal to be used, wettability with the material of the substrate on which this is melted, wettability with the surface layer provided on the surface of the substrate, film-forming property and the like. These substances are characterized in that they can be easily formed into a large area and have a memory property.

In the present invention, examples of the alignment method in the polymer liquid crystal include a method using an alignment control film, a method of adding a shear in a liquid crystal phase, a method of stretching, a method of applying a magnetic field and an electric field. Examples of the orientation treatment include the following.

(1) Horizontal Alignment (Aligning the Molecular Axis Direction of Liquid Crystal Compound or Liquid Crystal Composition Horizontally with respect to Substrate Surface) Rubbing Method A solution is coated on the substrate by vapor deposition or sputtering, for example, monoxide. Inorganic insulating materials such as silicon, silicon dioxide, aluminum oxide, zirconia, magnesium fluoride, cerium oxide, cerium fluoride, silicon nitride, silicon carbide, boron nitride, polyvinyl alcohol, polyimide, polyamide imide, polyester imide, polypara Xylelin, polyester, polycarbonate, polyvinyl acetal, polyvinyl chloride,
An alignment control film is formed by forming a film of an organic insulating material such as polyamide, polystyrene, cellulose resin, melamine resin, urea resin or acrylic resin, and then rubbing the surface with velvet, cloth or paper in one direction. To form.

Oblique vapor deposition method An orientation control film is formed by vapor-depositing an oxide such as SiO or a fluoride or a metal such as Au and Al and its oxide from an oblique angle of the substrate. The organic or inorganic insulating film shown by the oblique etching method is etched by obliquely irradiating it with an ion beam or oxygen plasma to form an orientation control film.

Use of Stretched Polymer Membrane A polymer membrane such as polyester or polyvinyl alcohol is stretched. Grating method Grooves are formed on the surface of the substrate by using photolithography, stamper or injection. In this case, the liquid crystal compound or liquid crystal composition is aligned in the groove direction.

Sharing A liquid crystal compound or a liquid crystal composition is aligned by applying shear stress at a temperature above the liquid crystal state. Stretching Orientation is carried out by uniaxial stretching or biaxial stretching. You may co-stretch with a board | substrate, such as polyester and polyvinyl alcohol.

(2) Vertical alignment (the molecular axis direction of the liquid crystal compound or liquid crystal composition is aligned perpendicular to the substrate surface)

A vertical alignment film is formed. A vertically oriented layer of organic silane, lecithin, polytetrafluoroethylene or the like is formed on the surface of the substrate. Oblique Vapor Deposition Vertical orientation can be imparted by appropriately selecting the vapor deposition angle while rotating the substrate by the oblique vapor deposition method described in (1)-. Further, after the oblique vapor deposition, the vertical aligning agent indicated by may be applied.

After the orientation treatment as described above, a switching element can be obtained by providing an upper substrate having electrodes, for example.

As other orientation methods, stretching methods such as uniaxial stretching, biaxial stretching and inflation stretching and rearrangement by shearing are performed. If the film alone has no film property and is difficult to stretch, it can be co-stretched by sandwiching it in a film. Further, the alignment is performed by a magnetic field / electric field, and it is possible to combine with the other alignment method described above.

When the above-described alignment method is applied to the polymer liquid crystal, the polymer liquid crystal has a higher viscosity in the liquid crystal phase than the low molecular liquid crystal, the alignment takes time, and sufficient alignment is obtained. It was also difficult to obtain.

In order to avoid such a problem, it is desirable to carry out the alignment treatment at a temperature as high as possible, but in the non-liquid crystal phase, there is a drawback that the effect of the above-mentioned alignment method is reduced. Therefore, the nematic phase is preferable as the liquid crystal phase having the lowest viscosity and good orientation.

The recording apparatus of the present invention will be described below. FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram showing an example of the recording apparatus of the present invention. In the figure, a single mode semiconductor laser 101
Are controlled by the drive power supply 102 according to the image signal obtained from the signal control device 103.

The laser light obtained from the single mode semiconductor laser 101 is made into a parallel light flux by the collimator lens 104, and astigmatism is corrected by the cylindrical lens 115. It is combined with the laser light obtained from the mode semiconductor laser 105, and is focused and irradiated onto the recording medium 111 by the laser light polarizer 109 using the f-θ lens 110.

The multimode semiconductor laser 105 gives a laser beam of a predetermined intensity by controlling the driving power supply 106 by the controller 115. The laser light obtained from the multi-mode semiconductor laser 105 is made into a parallel light flux by the collimator lens 107, and the cylindrical lens 1
After the astigmatism is corrected by 16, it is incident on the polarization beam splitter 108.

The polarization planes of the laser beams obtained from the single-mode semiconductor laser 101 and the multi-mode semiconductor laser 105 are orthogonal to each other, and they are easily combined by the polarization beam splitter 108 and cause unnecessary interference. Absent.

The combined laser light is scanned by using a laser light polarizer 109. As a commonly used polarizer, there are a rotating polygon mirror, a galvanometric mirror, a rotating holographic grating and the like. A rotating polycon mirror is used in a scanning optical system that requires high resolution.

The laser light polarized by the laser light deflector 109 is corrected by the f-θ lens 110 for distortion caused by scanning and is condensed, and is irradiated onto the recording medium 111. At that time, the shape of the spot of the laser light focused on the recording medium 111 is shown at 112.

A spot obtained from the multimode semiconductor laser 105 is shown at 113, and a spot obtained from the single mode semiconductor laser 101 is shown at 114. Spot 114 obtained from single mode semiconductor laser 101
The plane of polarization of is preferably perpendicular to the laser beam scanning direction.

FIG. 2 shows an example of spots obtained from the multimode semiconductor laser 105. A multimode semiconductor laser can generally obtain a high-power laser beam of 100 mW or more, but the emission area of the semiconductor laser device is broad and it is difficult to focus it on a fine spot of 20 μm or less. However, it has a sufficient ability to be used for auxiliary heating when a recording medium that undergoes a phase change due to heating is irradiated with laser light and heated.

The multi-mode semiconductor laser 105 has a strength
A modulation method is selected and used to obtain a good image with high definition and high contrast.

FIG. 3 shows a single mode semiconductor laser 101.
An example of a spot obtained by the above is shown. FIG. 3A shows the shape of the spot, and FIG. 3B shows the intensity distribution in the cross section of the spot.

A single-mode semiconductor laser generally has one
Although it has excellent characteristics that laser light with an output of 00 mW or less can be obtained and light can be condensed to the diffraction limit, it is difficult to record at high speed on a recording medium by itself.

Although it is possible to improve the output by combining a large number of single-mode semiconductor lasers, it is not desirable because optical adjustment is difficult and undesirable effects such as interference are likely to occur.

By combining the single-mode semiconductor laser and the multi-mode semiconductor laser in the present invention, it becomes possible to obtain a high-definition image having a good contrast at a high speed.

[0045]

EXAMPLES The present invention will be specifically described below with reference to examples.

Example 1 An IR absorber (λmax = 830n) represented by the structural formula (II) was added to a polymer liquid crystal represented by the structural formula (I) below.
m) was added as a cyclohexanone sol (sol) to a glass substrate having a PI (polyimide) rubbing alignment film by spin coating, and dried to give 1.5 μm.
The thickness is m. Then, a uniaxially oriented polymer liquid crystal recording medium was obtained by heat treatment.

[0047]

[Chemical 3]

Next, in the recording apparatus using the scanning optical system shown in FIG. 1, as the single mode semiconductor laser 101, SDL-5 manufactured by Shektra Diode Lab.
420-G1 (830nm, single mode output 100
mQ) as a multi-mode semiconductor laser manufactured by British STC LQ05A-82P (830 nm, output 5).
00 mW) was used.

Single-mode semiconductor laser (SDL-5
420-G1) with the plane of polarization perpendicular to the scanning direction, the spot shape of the condensing surface was measured with a CCD camera.
The diameter in the scanning direction was 10 μm, and the diameter perpendicular to the scanning direction was 18 μm.

Next, a multimode semiconductor laser (LQ0
When the spot shape of the light-collecting surface was measured by a CCD camera with the polarization plane of 5A-82P) as the scanning direction, the diameter was 105 μm in the scanning direction and the diameter was 20 μm perpendicular to the scanning direction. A single mode semiconductor laser (SDL-5320-G1) is applied to the polymer liquid crystal recording medium using the recording device.
Output of 80 mW, multimode semiconductor laser (LQ5
A-83P) output was 500 mW and recording was performed at a scanning speed of 30 m / s. The line width of the recording portion was 15 μm.
An image with a contrast of 100: 1 or more was obtained by a polarizing microscope.

Comparative Example 1 A multimode semiconductor laser of
No image was obtained when recording was performed under the same conditions as f. Then, when the scanning speed was set to 3 m / s, recording was possible, but the line width of the recording portion was 10 μm and the contrast by the polarization microscope was 10: 1, which was not sufficient.

COMPARATIVE EXAMPLE 2 In the above example, the polarization planes of the single-mode semiconductor laser and the multi-mode semiconductor laser were set parallel to each other, and recording was performed by incidence from the same direction without using a polarization beam splitter. The scanning speed was 10 m. If it was not set to / s, recording could not be performed, and the line width of the recording portion was expanded to 30 μm.

[0053]

As described above, according to the present invention, a single mode semiconductor laser and a multimode semiconductor laser are used in an apparatus for recording an image on a recording medium which causes a phase change by heating by a scanning optical system. By making the polarization planes orthogonal to each other, there is an effect that a high-definition image can be recorded at high speed.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram showing an example of a recording apparatus of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a spot shape obtained from a multimode semiconductor laser used in the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a spot shape obtained from a single mode semiconductor laser used in the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 101 Single Mode Semiconductor Laser 102 Drive Power Supply 103 Signal Control Device 104 Collimator Les 105 Multimode Semiconductor Laser 106 Drive Power Supply 107 Collimator Lens 108 Polarizing Beam Splitter 109 Laser Light Polarizer 110 f-θ Lens 111 Recording Medium 112 Spot Shape 113, 114 Spot 115 Control device 116 Cylindrical lens

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. An apparatus for recording an image on a recording medium which causes a phase change by heating by a scanning optical system, has a single mode semiconductor laser and a multimode semiconductor laser as a light source, and their polarization planes are orthogonal to each other. A recording device characterized by the above. 2. The recording apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the polarization plane of the single mode semiconductor laser is perpendicular to the scanning direction. 3. The recording apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the recording medium that causes a phase change by heating has a recording layer made of polymer liquid crystal.