Patent ID: 7729228

Claim:
An optical pickup comprising: a first light source which emits a light beam having a first wavelength; a second light source which emits a light beam having a second wavelength; a third light source which emits a light beam having a third wavelength; an objective lens which condenses each of the light beams emitted from the first to third light sources on a signal recording face of an optical disc; a collimator lens provided between the first to third light sources and the objective lens to convert a divergent angle of each of the light beams emitted from the first to third light sources so as to obtain a parallel light beam; and a diffractive optical element provided between the collimator lens and the objective lens, wherein: the diffractive optical element includes a first diffractive part which diffracts the light beam having the second wavelength and a second diffractive part which diffracts the light beam having the third wavelength, the second diffractive part has a diffraction structure formed by a plurality of concentric ring zones, the diffraction structure includes first, second, third, and fourth optical faces, each having a different height in an optical axis direction, formed in a stepwise and continuous manner, each of the heights of the first to fourth optical faces in the optical axis direction is formed to substantially transmit the light beams having the first wavelength and the second wavelength and to diffract the light beam having the third wavelength into negative first-order diffracted light and positive first-order diffracted light whose amount of diffraction is less than the negative first-order diffracted light, and the second diffractive part diffracts the light beam so that a ratio of the amount of diffraction of the negative first-order diffracted light of the light beam having the third wavelength to the amount of diffraction of the positive first-order diffracted light is 1.5 or larger.