Patent ID: 8023390

Claim:
An optical head for radiating a light to an optical recording medium in order to detect a reflected light from the optical recording medium, comprising: a light source; a first dividing unit for dividing the light emitted from the light source into a first light flux and a second light flux; a light collecting unit for collecting the first light flux onto the optical recording medium, the first light flux being reflected from the optical recording medium as a signal light; a reflector for reflecting the second light flux as a reference light including a polarization compensation element being provided within a path of the second light flux which is reflected as the reference light; a second dividing unit for dividing interfering light of the signal light reflected from the optical recording medium and the reference light into a plurality of light fluxes, such that phase differences of the signal light and the reference light in said plurality of light fluxes are different from each other; and a plurality of detectors formed on a same substrate for detecting lights divided with the second dividing unit.