US 7,558,162 B2
Optical pick-up head, optical information apparatus, and optical information reproducing method
Shin-ichi Kadowaki, Sanda (Japan); Kousei Sano, Osaka (Japan); Akihiro Arai, Souraku-gun (Japan); Katsuhiko Yasuda, Neyagawa (Japan); Tomotada Kamei, Neyagawa (Japan); Hiroaki Yamamoto, Kawabe-gun (Japan); and Fumitomo Yamasaki, Nara (Japan)
Assigned to Panasonic Corporation, Osaka (Japan)
Filed on Oct. 31, 2007, as Appl. No. 11/981,487.
Application 11/789106 is a division of application No. 10/646602, filed on Aug. 22, 2003, granted, now 7,227,819.
Application 11/981487 is a continuation of application No. 11/789106, filed on Apr. 23, 2007, granted, now 7,460,448.
Claims priority of application No. 2002-243059 (JP), filed on Aug. 23, 2002; application No. 2003-048932 (JP), filed on Feb. 26, 2003; application No. 2003-050846 (JP), filed on Feb. 27, 2003; application No. 2003-052828 (JP), filed on Feb. 28, 2003; and application No. 2003-052829 (JP), filed on Feb. 28, 2003.
Prior Publication US 2008/0068944 A1, Mar. 20, 2008
Int. Cl. G11B 7/00 (2006.01)
U.S. Cl. 369—44.12  [369/44.28; 369/44.41; 369/112.03] 4 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. An optical information apparatus, comprising:
an optical pick-up head including:
a light source emitting a light beam;
a condensing unit receiving a beam from the light source and condensing the beam onto an optical recording medium;
a beam splitter receiving the beam reflected from the optical recording medium and splitting the beam; and
a photodetector receiving the beams split by the beam splitter and outputting signals in accordance with amounts of the received light beams;
wherein the photodetector has a plurality of light-receiving portions,
a tracking error signal generator generating a tracking error signal for irradiating a desired track with a beam;
wherein the optical recording medium has an information recording surface for recording information,
the optical recording medium has a reflective surface for reflecting the beam when the beam is condensed onto the information recording surface,
the beam splitter has a plurality of regions, a size of the beam on the beam splitter is D, a numerical aperture of the condensing unit is NA, a lateral multiplication of an optical system in the optical pick-up head from the optical recording medium to the photodetector is α, an interval between the information recording surface and the reflective surface is d, and a refractive index present in the interval d between the information recording surface and the reflective surface is n2,
the tracking error signal generator performs a differential arithmetic operation with respect to the signals output from the light-receiving portions to generate a push-pull signal, and
when the beam splitter splits the beam in a direction different from that of the light-receiving portion outputting a signal for generating the tracking error signal over a width h of a region in a vicinity of a center to be irradiated with the beam, a width S of the light-receiving portion outputting a signal for generating the tracking error signal has a relationship S≤2·h·α·NA·d/(D·n2).