Patent ID: 8355205

Claim:
An optical element, comprising a cemented portion including: a diffraction optical portion including a plurality of diffraction gratings which are layered, the diffraction optical portion having a light incident surface and a light exiting surface; and a refractive optical portion which includes a solid material and has a refraction action, the refractive optical portion being in intimate contact with at least one of the light incident surface and the light exiting surface, wherein the following conditional equations are satisfied: 0.01 <|ΔθgF|< 0.50; and νd<60, where νd and θgF indicate an Abbe number and a partial dispersion ratio of the solid material, respectively, and ΔθgF indicates an extraordinary partial dispersion ratio and where ΔθgF=θgF−(−1.665×10 −7 ×νd 3 +5.213×10 −5 ×νd 2 −5.656×10 −3 ×νd+ 0.7278).