IMAGING DEVICE

LIP 17/001 AU2 IMAGING DEVICE An imaging device is described for projecting individually controllable laser beams onto an imaging surface that is movable relative to the device in a reference X-direction. The 5 device includes a plurality of semiconductor chips each of which comprises a plurality of laser beam emitting elements arranged in a two-dimensional main array of M rows and N columns. The elements in each row have a uniform spacing Ar and the elements in each column have a uniform spacing ac. The chips are mounted on a support in such a manner that each pair of chips that are adjacent one another in a reference Y-direction, transverse to the X 10 direction, are offset from one another in the X-direction, and, when activated continuously, the emitted laser beams of the two chips of said pair trace on the imaging surface a set of parallel lines that extend in the X-direction and are substantially uniformly spaced in the Y direction. In addition to the M rows and N columns of elements of the main array, each chip comprises at least one additional column on at least one side of the main array, each 15 additional column containing at least one selectively operable laser emitting element capable of compensating for any misalignment in the Y-direction in the relative positioning of the adjacent chips on the support. 1407 1405 1403 14 1409 - 1409 1410 - 1404 Fig. 1