Patent ID: 7876648

Claim:
An optical pickup device for irradiating an optical disk having a plurality of recording layers in a laminated direction with a laser beam, comprising: a light source which emits the laser beam; an objective lens which causes the laser beam emitted from the light source to converge onto a target recording layer among the plurality of recording layers; a beam branching element which separates the laser beam emitted from the light source and reflected light beams reflected by the recording layers; a photodetector for receiving the reflected light beam from the target recording layer; and an optical element disposed at a focal position of a stray light beam which is the reflected light beam from the recording layer except the target recording layer, on an optical path between the beam branching element and the photodetector to remove or attenuate the reflected light beams in a convergent region of the stray light beam in the incident reflected light beams, wherein an optical system from the light source to the objective lens is configured such that a polarization state of the reflected light beam separated by the beam branching element becomes a linearly polarization, optical means including a first plane of polarization, a second plane of polarization, a first reflection plane, a second reflection plane and a wavelength plate along a traveling path of the reflected light beam separated by the beam branching element is disposed, the wavelength plate changing the polarization direction of the reflected light beam by 90 degrees, the optical means is configured such that the reflected light beam incident through the first plane of polarization passes through the second plane of polarization, the first reflection plane and the second reflection plane, passes through the first plane of polarization again, and is guided in a direction from the second plane of polarization toward the photodetector, the optical means being disposed such that focal positions of the first and second stray light beams guided respectively from different two of the recording layers are coincident with each other on an optical path between the first plane of polarization and the second plane of polarization, and the optical element is disposed at the common focal position of the first and second stray light beams.