Abstract: The terminations of the optical fibers are placed on columns L1 in the sub-scanning direction of a recording medium and fixed in such a way that columns L1 are stacked in multiple stages in the main scanning direction of the recording medium. In this way, the terminations form a matrix made up of 8 columns L1 in the sub-scanning direction of the recording medium and 16 rows L2 in the main scanning direction of the recording medium that intersect columns L1. The terminations of a plurality of optical fibers which belong to same columns L1 are arrayed with pitch P. With respect to a perpendicular that passes through center C of the termination of one optical fiber, center C of the termination that belongs to another column L1 and same row L2 at the same time is uniformly shifted by an amount of shift S in the sub-scanning direction. Thus, the present recording apparatus achieves improvements in both the recording speed and resolution at the same time.

Abstract: A first optical head comprising: a laser diode (LD) array, including N LDs having N emitting portions respectively arranged in a line at a predetermined interval, for emitting N laser beams of single mode; an optical system for forming a single spot as a pixel on a recording medium from the N laser beams such that images of the N emitting portions are contracted and overlapped each other; and a driver for driving the N LDs according to a single video signal. A second optical head comprising: M LD arrays, each including N LDs having N emitting portions respectively arranged in a line and emitting N laser beams of single mode from the N emitting portions; an optical system for forming M single spots as M pixels on a recording medium from the M of N laser beams such that images of the N emitting portions of each LD arrays are contracted and overlapped each other on the recording medium; and a driver for driving the M LD arrays according to M video signals respectively.