Optical pick-up apparatus having hologram and beam splitter with

Abstract

An optical pick-up apparatus for reproducing information recorded on a magneto-optical record medium including a semiconductor laser emitting a linearly polarized laser beam, and a polarizing film provided between a glass prism and a uniaxial birefringent crystal prism. The laser beam emitted by the semiconductor laser is made incident upon the polarizing film via the glass prism and is reflected thereby. The apparatus further includes an objective lens projecting the laser beam reflected by the polarizing film onto the magneto-optical record medium as a fine spot and converging a return laser beam reflected by the record medium toward the polarizing film. The return beam transmitted through the polarizing film is refracted by the uniaxial birefringent crystal prism and is divided into ordinary light and extraordinary light, which are received by a first photodetector to produce a reproduced information signal. The return beam reflected by the polarizing film is made incident upon a hologram and is diffracted thereby into .+-.1-order beams which are received by a second photodetector to produce a focusing error signal and a tracking error signal.