Nowadays most laser printers use polygonal mirrors for its optical scanning systems. However if galvanometer was used, it would be of great use in making more compact scanning system. This paper describes a new type of galvanometer for scanning system of a laser printer.
This device is a compact galvanometer produced from quartz wafer, using micro-machining techniques. The merits of this device are a compact size (25mm×25mm×15mm), large scan angle (a 110 deg. peak to peak max), high speed scanning (a speed of 840 scans per second), and a structure suitable for mass production. The features of the device were evaluated and it was found that the jitter was less than 0.03%, the wobble was less than 100 urad, and the stability of the scan angle over a temperature range of 5 to 50°C was less than a 0.5% change. These values satisfy the specifications which are required to get good prints.