Effect of Interference on Scanning Performance of fθ Lens Fixed by a Shrink Fitter

An ultra-precise method of joining optical lenses in a housing by a shrinkage fit has been developed using a shrink fitter, which is a cylindrically shaped machine element made of a plastic material. In this method, the form error of the shrink fitter increased the interference of shrinkage fit which caused a lens deformation much greater than the limitation of surface irregularity of λ/2. With an fθ lens unit of the laser scanner, this lens deformation may deteriorate the laser beam spots on an image plane. Therefore, the shrink fitter is carefully and precisely turned, however this takes time and costs money. This is a contact problem between the optical lenses and the shrink fitter. In this paper, to determine limit interferences of the shrink fitter, the effect of the interference of the shrinkage fit on the scanning performance was examined through computer simulation.