US Patent 7256916 Optical scanning imaging system

The system includes an illumination system, a scanner, a non-linear optical element, and a pumping light source. The illumination system emits imaging beam and the scanner scans the beam incident from the illumination system. The non-linear optical element is made of a material having a Kerr effect or the like and forms a lens automatically aligned while following a path of the imaging beam scanned from the scanner. The pumping light source actives the non-linear optical element to cause a non-linear refractive index change of the non-linear optical element.