Optical pickup using an optical phase plate

摘要

An optical pickup apparatus having compatibility with a recordable compact disk (CD-R) and a digital video disk (DVD) uses one of a first light (31) and a second light (40) according to a recording medium (8, 9) to be used. In the optical pickup apparatus, laser light sources (31, 40) emit first light having a relatively shorter wavelength for the DVD (8) and second light having longer wavelength for the CD-R (9), respectively. An objective lens (37) has a predetermined focal length in accordance with the position of an information recording surface in the DVD (8). An optical path control unit (32-35) controls the path of lights (31, 40) so that the light emitted from one of the laser light sources is directed to the objective lens (37) and the light output from the objective lens (37) is directed to said optical detection unit (39). A phase shift unit (38) which is located between the optical path control unit (32-35) and the objective lens (37), shifts the phase of the second light proceeding from said optical path control unit (32-35) to the objective lens (37), to thereby reduce the size of a beam spot which is formed on the position of the information recording surface in the CD-R (9). <IMAGE>