Patent ID: 7280459

Claim:
Device for reading from and/or writing to optical recording media with a light beam which is linearly polarized in a first direction of polarization, information being stored in the form of pits on the optical recording medium, the device comprising: a birefringent beam-splitting element having two oppositely arranged Rochon prisms for splitting the light beam into partial beams in accordance with the first and a second direction of polarization, perpendicular to the first direction of polarization, the second direction of polarization being introduced into the light beam by the optical recording medium, partly reflecting element, which directs both the partial beam of the first direction of polarization and the partial beam of the second direction of polarization onto a detector unit, which has separate detector elements for the partial beams of the two directions of polarization, and a quarter-wave plate which changes the polarization of the light beam and through which the light beam passes before impinging on the recording medium and after reflection from the recording medium.