Abstract: In a small-sized optical pickup device for enabling to obtain a stable servo-signal, as well as, a focus error signal and a tracking error signal, without receiving ill influences of stray lights from other layers, when recording/reproducing a multi-layer optical disc, a reflection light from the multi-layer optical disc is divided into plural numbers of regions by a diffraction grating. And, it is divided into at least four (4) regions, by a division line in the tangential direction of the optical disc and a division line in the radial direction thereof. Light receiving parts, for detecting either one of grating diffraction lights, i.e.

Abstract: An optical pickup which excels in assembly workability and which can increase the drive force generated in a focusing coil is provided. The optical pickup has an objective lens, a lens holder holding the objective lens, and a first and a second focusing coil wound around the lens holder. The first focusing coil includes an upper part wound about a central axis extending in parallel with an optical axis of the objective lens and a lower part connected to the upper part. The second focusing coil includes an upper part wound, in a wiring system separate from the first focusing coil, about a central axis extending in parallel with the optical axis of the objective lens and a lower part connected to the upper part.

Abstract: The present invention provides a unit and method for implementing an optical head and optical drive device whose configuration is simple, and which allows the generation of a track error signal in which no offset is caused to occur. The optical drive device includes a light source for emitting light beams, an objective lens for converging the light beams onto an optical disc, an optical-signal generation element for dividing the light beams into at least four regions by using a division line extending in the radial direction of the optical disc, and a division line extending in the track direction of the optical disc, the light beams being reflected by the optical disc, and an optical detector for receiving the light beams divided by the optical-signal generation element, wherein the up and down or right and left areas of the four regions are made different from each other.

Abstract: An optical pickup includes an object lens; a moving part including the object lens and coils; rod-shaped support members disposed in a focusing direction, one end of each of the support members being attached to side surfaces of the moving part in a tracking direction; a fixing part for fixing the other end of each of the support members; a yoke including magnets; and gel holding parts, each of the gel holding parts including walls on both sides of the support members in the tracking direction, and the support members being disposed on both sides of the moving part in the tracking direction. Each of the gel holding parts includes an opening at one end on an optical disc side in the focusing direction and includes a cutout in the wall farther from the object lens in the tracking direction, the cutout extending from an edge of the opening.

Abstract: An optical pickup has a laser light source, beam splitter, collimator lens, reflection mirror, objective lens and photo detector are mounted in a case. An objective lens actuator includes a magnetic member and magnet. The optical pickup may become contaminated by uncured adhesive remaining at the edges of the adhesive surfaces of the magnet and the magnetic member that is transferred to the optical pickup via finger cots or tweezers, etc. In an adhesion step between the magnet and the magnetic member, in which part of a groove near to the center of the surface has a small depth and part of the groove near to the outer circumference of the surface has a large depth, an adhesive is drawn toward the center of the surface of the magnetic member by a capillary phenomenon and is prevented from spreading along the outer edge of the surface.

Abstract: Provided is a reliable optical pick-up which can prevent deterioration of a performance of a component, shortening of a service life or malfunctioning due to heat generation of an laser driver IC, wherein a metallic pattern is provided on a flexible printed board, having an area wider than the external shape of the laser driver IC and having an exposed outer surface, and made of the same material as that of a wiring pattern. It is preferable to bend the flexible printed board in a mounting part for the laser driver IC so that the metallic pattern is faced to and superposed with a surface of the flexible printed board on the side remote from the surface on which the laser driver IC is mounted.

Abstract: An optical pickup whose thickness is small and power consumption is low is provided, in which these advantages are achieved by increasing the driving force generated in the tilt coil in an objective lens driving apparatus and by making the thickness of the objective lens driving apparatus to be small. In an optical pickup including: an objective lens for condensing light onto an optical disc; a lens holder to which the objective lens has been attached; a focusing coli, a tracking coil, and a tilt coil, which have been attached to the lens holder; and a reflection mirror for reflecting light toward the optical axis of the objective lens, the tilt coil is made to have a shape in which the tilt coil is not brought into contact with the side of the reflection mirror, the side being near to the objective lens.

Abstract: An optical pickup device includes a laser diode for emitting a laser beam, an objective lens for collecting the light beam emitted from the laser diode and irradiating an optical disc with the collected light beam, a diffraction element for making the light beam reflected from the optical disc diverge, and a detector having a plurality of detection parts for receiving the diverging light beams caused by the diffraction element. The diffraction element has first, second, and third divided areas, wherein a 0th-order diffracted light from the first divided area, the second divided area, and the third divided area is detected by at least four divided detection parts; and at least two detection parts for detecting the light beam diffracted at the first divided area into first or higher diffraction order are aligned in a direction generally perpendicular to the track of the optical disc.

Abstract: The invention provides an optical pickup device that ensures complete curing of adhesive when a tilt adjusting holder is glued to an objective lens holder. The optical pickup device comprises: a light source; an objective lens for focusing light emitted from the light source onto an optical storage medium; a tilt adjusting holder to which to secure the objective lens; and an objective lens holder to which to glue the tilt adjusting holder. The objective lens holder includes: adhesive joint sections for securing the tilt adjusting holder to the objective lens holder using an adhesive; a seat section on which the tilt adjusting holder abuts; and adhesive anti-overflow pockets, located between the adhesive joint sections and the seat section, for receiving the adhesive when the adhesive flows from the adhesive joint sections.

Abstract: Optical pickup device including: semiconductor laser diode emitting optical flux; objective lens converging flux emitted from the diode and radiating flux to an optical disc; diffraction grating branching an optical flux reflected from the disc; and a photodetector receiving flux branched by the grating and has a plurality of light receiving parts, wherein: the grating has areas A, B and C; among diffracted beams diffracted by a track of the optical disc, only a 0-th order diffracted beam becomes incident upon area A, and 0-th and ±1-st order diffracted beams become incident upon area B; the photodetector detects a reproduction signal from optical fluxes diffracted in areas A, B and C; the plurality of light receiving parts which detect the +1-st order diffracted beam or the ?1-st diffracted beam diffracted in area A are aligned in a direction substantially perpendicular or parallel to a track direction of the disc.

Abstract: Disclosed are a module to detect a tracking error signal that is easy to be assembled and robust against variation in a track angle, a diffraction grating, an optical pickup, and an optical disc apparatus that enable the module to be realized, wherein a diffraction grating divided into at least three areas, first, second, and third areas, is used; the second area is an area that do not diffract light; and focusing positions of light diffracted by the first and third areas sandwiching the second area therebetween on an optical disc are arranged with a spacing of (2n?1)×t/2 in an optical disc radial direction, respectively, where n is a nonnegative integer and t is a spacing of guide grooves of the optical disc.

Abstract: In an optical module that aligns light beams from lasers of the three colors of red, green, and blue along a single combined beam optical axis, when the ambient temperature range is wider than the guaranteed operating range of the lasers, relative positional displacements of beam spots of the three colors that are generated due to a displacement or a deformation resulting from a temperature range at a heating time or a cooling time are suppressed. The optical module, which has mounted thereon a plurality of lasers, and emits light beams from the plurality of lasers, includes a cooling device that cools the entire optical module via a case on which the optical module is mounted, and heating devices that are provided on respective laser holders and individually heat the respective lasers.

Abstract: An optical disc device includes an optical source for emitting an optical beam, an incident intensity control circuit for controlling an intensity of the optical beam emitted from the optical source, an objective lens for focusing the optical beam on an optical disc, an optical detector for receiving the optical beam reflected from the optical disc, and a servo signal generation circuit for generating a focus error signal from the optical detector, by this configuration, the optical beam is varied once to a third optical beam intensity to be present in between a first optical beam intensity and a second optical beam intensity when varying from the first optical beam intensity up to the second optical beam intensity different from the first optical beam intensity, and the incident intensity control circuit is controlled such that the variation of focus error signal is not exceeded over a predetermined range.

Abstract: For obtaining stable servo-signals without receiving ill influences of stray lights from other layers, on both a focus error signal and a tracking error signal, when recording/reproducing a multi-layer optical disc having small gap between layers thereof, a light beam is divided with using a first and a second diffraction gratings. The first diffraction grating is a polarization diffraction grating, and is mounted on an actuator. The second diffraction grating is disposed on a fixed portion. The first diffraction grating has a first region having a center of a light beam and other(s), and among signal lights reflecting from the disc, the light beam entering into the first region is diffracted, and the light beam entering into the second region transmits therethrough. The second diffraction grating transmits the light beam diffracting on the first region of the polarization diffraction grating therethrough, while diffracting the light beam diffracting on the second region.

Abstract: In a photo-detector position adjustment/bonding process, it has been necessary for a worker to hold a dangling photo-detector and plate with a tool such as tweezers, and chuck the photo-detector and plate onto an adjustment jig. Because the chucking onto the adjustment jig is performed by a manual operation, productivity is low and it has been difficult to decrease the process standard time (ST). In order to substantially stabilize the standby position of the photo-detector, a pressing force is provided by the reaction force of a flexible substrate in the direction of an optical pickup, and the contacting surfaces of an optical pickup case and the plate are prevented from sliding and displaced from each other.

Abstract: A laser light source module includes a housing and a heat sink that is thermally connected to the housing. The housing includes a laser element that emits laser light, a laser holder that is made of metal to hold the laser element, a laser light receiving element that receives laser beam from the laser element, a mirror element that reflects the laser light to scan a screen, an optical element that is disposed on the optical axis of the laser light. The laser holder is thermally connected to the housing with a thermally conductive member. A protrusion is formed on the thermally conductive member. The protrusion and the springiness of the thermally conductive member are used to press the laser holder against the housing in the same direction as the direction of laser light emission.

Abstract: In an optical pickup device for a simple optical system, a light beam emitted from a laser diode is split into first and second light beams by a polarized beam splitter, an optical disc is irradiated with the first light beam to obtain signal light, and the second beam is reflected by a reflection element to obtain reference light. Light beams of the signal light and the reference light are synthesized into one light beam, the synthesized light beam is separated into four light beams by a phase difference forming unit including a grating, a divided wave plate and a polarization grating, and different phase differences are afforded to the signal light and the reference light in each light beam. The four light beams are detected by one detector to generate the reproduction signal.

Abstract: An optical scanning device includes a rotationally-moving minor on which a reflection plane is provided in a rotationally-movable manner, and a sealing unit over which a light-transmissive cover is provided, a first plane of the light-transmissive cover, a second plane of the light-transmissive cover, and the reflection plane of the rotationally-moving mirror within a rotationally-moving range being non-parallel to each other, the first plane being on the opposite side to the side of the rotationally-moving minor, the second plane being on the side of the rotationally-moving minor.

Abstract: An optical pickup having a case made of a resin material reinforced with glass fiber, inorganic filler or the like with polyphenylene sulfide as a base material, and a metal plate formed of a material having a linear expansion coefficient within a range of a linear expansion coefficient of the case in a direction between bearings when a fiber orientation of the case is along the direction between the bearings or random. The metal plate has two rising members bended to the case side at both ends in the direction between the bearings. Two walls of the outer hull of an opening of the case at both ends in the direction between the bearings and the two rising members of the metal plate are alternately opposed, and the opposed walls of the case and the rising members of the metal plate are fixed using adhesives.

Abstract: An optical pickup device includes a polarization diffraction grating to diverge an optical beam reflected from an optical disc and an optical detector to receive the optical beam diverged by the polarization diffraction grating, a polarization of 0 order diffracted light diffracted through the polarization diffraction grating is substantially perpendicular to that of a +1 order diffracted light diffracted therethrough, and a polarization filter having a plurality of domains is mounted between the polarization diffraction grating and the optical detector.