Optical head and recording and/or reproducing apparatus employing same

Abstract

Disclosed is an optical head in which position adjustment of a photodetector light receiving surface or component parts may be simplified, production costs may be reduced and operational reliability may be improved. The optical head includes a light source, radiating light of a preset wavelength, an objective lensfor condensing the outgoing light from the light sourceon an optical discand for condensing the return light from the optical disc, a beam splitterfor branching the optical path of the return light reflected by the optical disc, and for collimating the branched return light so as to be parallel to the outgoing light from the light source, a composite optical component including a splitting prismarranged on a site of incidence of the branched return light for spatially splitting the return light, and a light receiving unit for receiving plural return light beams spatially split by the splitting prismfor producing focusing error signals.