Patent ID: 7450477

Claim:
An optical pickup comprising: a light source emitting a laser beam; a beam splitter reflecting part of an incident light and straight transmitting the remaining light to change a proceeding path of the incident light; an objective lens for focusing the incident light from the beam splitter to form a light spot on an optical recording medium; a polarization beam splitter arranged on an optical path of the incident light that is reflected from the optical recording medium and which passes through the beam splitter for transmitting light having one polarization and reflecting light having a different polarization; a first photodetector for receiving the light having one polarization that is transmitted by the polarization beam splitter; and a second photodetector for receiving the light having a different polarization that is reflected by the polarization beam splitter; wherein an information signal and error signals are determined from a signal detected by the first and second photodetectors; wherein the first photodetector comprises first through fourth sectioned plates, and fifth and sixth sectioned plates arranged respectively at opposite sides of the first through fourth sectioned plates; wherein the second photodetector comprises seventh through tenth sectioned plates, and eleventh and twelfth sectioned plates arranged respectively at opposite sides of the seventh through tenth sectioned plates; wherein signals detected from each of the first through fourth sectioned plates and signals detected from each of the seventh through tenth sectioned plates are summed, and each of the summed signals is differentiated and/or summed to determine a focus error signal and an information signal; and wherein signals detected from each of the fifth and sixth sectioned plates and signals detected from each of the eleventh and twelfth sectioned plates are differentiated, and each of the differentiated signals is summed to determine a track error signal.