Patent ID: 7009919

Claim:
An optical pickup apparatus enabling to read information of a plurality of recording mediums having different reading wavelengths from each other, comprising: a light emission part including a first light emission source for emitting a first laser beam and a second light emission source for emitting a second laser beam having a wavelength different from that of the first laser beam, the second light emission source integrally formed with the first light emission source and placed adjacent to the first light emission source, the light emission part controlled to selectively emit the first or second laser beam as a laser beam; a grating for generating a pair of sub-beams from the laser beam; a hologram for generating first high-order beams from the laser beam reflected by a recording medium and second high-order beams from the pair of the sub-beams reflected by the recording medium; and a light receiving part for receiving the first and second high-order beams to generate a reading signal, a focus error signal, and a tracking error signals wherein the light receiving part comprises: a first pair of three-division light receiving elements; a second pair of three-division light receiving elements; a first pair of sub-beam light receiving elements; and a second pair of sub-beam light receiving elements; when the first laser beam is emitted from the light emission part as the laser beam, the first pair of the three-division light receiving elements receive the first high-order beams to generate the reading signal and the focus error signal; the first pair of the sub-beam light receiving elements receive the second high-order beam generated from one of the pair of the sub-beams; the second pair of the three-division light receiving elements receive the second high-order beams generated from the other of the pair of sub-beams; and the first pair of the sub-beam light receiving elements and the second pair of the three-division light receiving elements generate the tracking error signal; and when the second laser beam is emitted from the light emission part, the first pair of the three-division light receiving elements receive the second high-order beams generated from one of the pair of the sub-beams; the second pair of the three-division light receiving elements receive the first high-order beams to generate the reading signal and the focus error signal; the second pair of the sub-beam light receiving elements receive the second high-order beams generated from the other of the pair of sub-beams; and the first pair of the three-division light receiving elements and the second pair of the sub-beam light receiving elements generate the tracking error signal.