Patent ID: 8345529

Claim:
An optical pickup apparatus comprising: a laser diode having a first laser element and a second laser element arranged in the same package, the first laser element configured to emit a first laser beam, the second laser element configured to emit a second laser beam having a wavelength shorter than a wavelength of the first laser beam; an objective lens configured to condense the first laser beam emitted from the laser diode to a signal recording layer of a first optical disc and condense the second laser beam emitted from the laser diode to a signal recording layer of a second optical disc of a standard different from a standard of the first optical disc; and a collimating lens arranged in an optical path between the laser diode and the objective lens, the collimating lens configured to change the first and second laser beams emitted from the laser diode from divergent light to parallel light, the collimating lens being inclined with respect to optical axes of the first and second laser beams so that first and second astigmatisms in the first and second laser beams emitted from the laser diode are corrected, the first astigmatism caused by an astigmatic difference of the first and second laser elements, the second astigmatism caused by displacement of the light emitting points of the first and second laser elements, the astigmatic difference being a distance between a virtual light emitting point in a short diameter direction and a virtual light emitting point in a long diameter direction in each of the first and second laser beams.