ABSTRACT
The optical systems that have been designed to work with the highly nontraditional light sources, which are both anamorphic in physical layout as well as in beam properties, are themselves nontraditional, and typically employ a variety of modern micro-optical components. In a variety of applications, including longitudinal solid-state laser pumping, fiber coupling for fiber lasers, and line printers, laser diode arrays have proven to be very effective light sources when combined with the appropriate beam shaping optics. More commonly, printing systems have been designed wherein a laser or laser diode array is used only as a continuous wave driven light source with the light incident on a spatial light modulator array, either as individual beams or as flood illumination. The laser thermal donor suited for continuous-tone applications is capable of transferring intermediate amounts of its coating of visible dye to a receiver when stimulated by the incident laser radiation.
