Patent ID: 7203138

Claim:
An optical head device, comprising: a light source for emitting light; a collection optical system for collecting the light emitted by the light source to an information memory medium including tracks having prescribed grooves; a light detector having a plurality of detection areas for receiving the light reflected by the information memory medium and outputting a signal in accordance with a light amount of the light received; a differential operation circuit for receiving the signals output from the light detector and generating a differential signal based on the signals; and a light division element for dividing a reflected light reflected by the information memory medium; wherein a relationship λ/(NA·Tp)≧1 is satisfied where λ is the wavelength of the light emitted from the light source, NA is the numerical aperture of the collection optical system, and Tp is the distance from a center of the track in the information memory medium to a center of the adjacent track; and the differential operation circuit generates a differential signal from an area except for an overlapping area of the reflected light, the overlapping area being an area of overlapping two circles each having a radius of 1 and having a center of one circle being apart from a center of the reflected light beam at a distance of λ/(NA·2Tp) in a direction orthogonal to the track from a center of a cross-section of the reflected light, when the cross-section of the reflected light on the light division element in a circle having a radius of 1.