Abstract: A device for forming an interference grating on a sample. The device including a laser emitting a light beam of wavelength ?, a beam splitter plate splitting the light beam into first and second beams, the first beam being deflected in a first direction, a first stationary deflection mirror for deflecting the first beam onto a point P of the sample at a first constant angle of incidence ?1, and at least one second stationary deflection mirror for deflecting the second beam along a final path that reaches point P of the sample at a second angle of incidence ?2 in order to form an interference grating on the sample at a pitch that depends on the angular difference ?. The device includes a movable deflection mirror to deflect the second beam from a plurality of first deflection points towards a plurality of second deflection points on the second mirror.

Abstract: An inexpensive sheet with excellent evenness and a desired uniform thickness can be obtained by cooling a base having protrusions, dipping the surfaces of the protrusions of the cooled base into a melt material containing at least one of a metal material and a semiconductor material for crystal growth of the material on the surfaces of the protrusions. In addition, by rotating a roller having on its peripheral surface protrusions and a cooling portion for cooling said protrusions, the surfaces of the cooled protrusions can be dipped into a melt material containing at least one of a metal material and a semiconductor material for crystal growth of the material on the surfaces of the protrusions. Thus, a sheet with a desired uniform thickness can be obtained without slicing process.

Abstract: An optical scanning apparatus includes a semiconductor laser, a polygonal mirror as a deflector for scanning a light beam from the laser, a photosensitive drum for forming an electrostatic latent image, a converging lens for converging the light beam from the laser onto the photosensitive drum, and a reflection mirror located between the deflector and the photosensitive drum. The reflection mirror is adapted to reflect the light beam so that a light beam reflected by the reflection mirror is used to read a source document placed at a position that is the conjugate of the position of the photosensitive drum surface with respect to the converging device. Inside the casing of the semiconductor laser are a beam splitter for light path separation and a photosensor. The apparatus has an image reader section and a laser printer section, which share a common optical system, thus providing a compact design and cost reduction and also equalizes the accuracy of image reading and printing.

Abstract: A laser drawing apparatus is provided including, a first beam splitting element for splitting laser light emitted from a laser source into a plurality of beams, a second beam splitting element for splitting the beams split by the first beam splitting element into a plurality of groups of drawing beams, optical modulators which provide separate ON/OFF drawing data to the respective split drawing beams split by the second splitting element, a beam combining element for combining the split drawing beams to which the ON/OFF drawing data has been provided, and a beam scanning element for scanning a drawing surface on which an image is to be formed with the combined drawing beams.