The present application claims priority from Japanese application JP2009-209966 filed on Sep. 11, 2009, the content of which is hereby incorporated by reference into this application.
The present invention relates to an optical pickup device and an optical disc apparatus using the same.
As a background art of this technical field, for example, JP-A-2005-203090 is disclosed. In this publication, disclosed is a problem to be solved where “provided is an optical pickup device that can suppress interference light caused by adjacent layers and improve fluctuation of tracking error signals detected by a DPP method when recording and/or reproducing data onto and/or from a multi-layer optical disc that has a plurality of recording layers on one side”. Further, disclosed is a solution where “this optical pickup device has an optical component that suppresses the interference light caused by the adjacent layers from being received by a photodetector when applied to an optical information recording medium that has at least a plurality of recording layers on one surface”. Also, disclosed is a solution wherein “this makes it possible to suppress the interference light caused by the adjacent layers from being received by the photodetector, especially by first and second sub photodetectors of the photodetector”.
A problem to be solved by the present invention is that in recent years, when recording and/or reproducing data onto and/or from an optical disc in which recording layers are multilayered, an unwanted luminous flux reflected by a recording layer not to be reproduced enters a photodetector surface to become disturbance components, thereby fluctuating a detection signal of the photodetector. In the multi-layer optical disc having three or more recording layers, particularly, since unwanted luminous fluxes are caused by a plurality of layers, disturbance components are increased to remarkably increase fluctuation of the detection signals.
In view of the foregoing, it is an object of the present invention to provide an optical pickup device and optical disc apparatus that reduce leakage to the detection signals by the disturbance components caused by the unwanted luminous flux and obtain stable recording or reproduction quality with high quality.
The above-described object can be accomplished by the invention recited in a scope of patent claim as one example.
To accomplish the above-described object, according to one aspect of the present invention, there are provided an optical pickup device and optical disc apparatus that can reduce an influence on the detection signals due to the disturbance components caused by the unwanted luminous fluxes and detect signals with high quality.
Other objects, features and advantages of the invention will become apparent from the following description of the embodiments of the invention taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.
Hereinafter, preferred embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings of the embodiments. Furthermore, in each figure, the same reference numerals are attached to the constituent elements performing the same action.
A laser luminous flux 1 emitted from a laser light source is made incident on a diffraction grating as a luminous flux dividing element. The laser luminous flux 1 is divided into a main luminous flux 3 including 0th-order diffracted light and two sub-luminous fluxes 4 and 5 including positive 1st-order diffracted light and negative 1st-order diffracted light. A traveling direction of each luminous flux is changed by a polarized beam splitter 6. Each luminous flux passes through a collimating lens 8 capable of correcting a spherical aberration of an incident luminous flux by the driving of a stepper motor 7, a diffractive optical element 9 including a diffraction region that diffracts a part of the main luminous flux and the sub-luminous fluxes, and a quarter wave plate 10 that gives a phase difference of 90 degrees to two polarization components orthogonal to each other. Then, each luminous flux is independently converged on a predetermined recording layer within an optical disc 12 by an objective lens 11. A reflected luminous flux from the optical disc of each converged light spot is transmitted to the objective lens 11 again, and then, passes through the quarter wave plate 10, the diffractive optical element 9, the collimating lens 8, the polarized beam splitter 6, and an astigmatism generating unit 13, and enters a photodetector 14. In addition, the objective lens 11, the quarter wave plate 10, and the diffractive optical element 9 may be installed within an actuator 15 for driving them to a predetermined direction. A tracking error signal described later is fed back to this actuator 15, and position control of the objective lens 11 is performed to thereby perform tracking control. As a spherical aberration correction unit 43, a liquid crystal device may be used. A half mirror may be used in place of the polarized beam splitter 6. As the astigmatism generating unit 13, for example, a cylindrical lens may be further used. Astigmatism is given to the luminous flux by the cylindrical lens, thereby detecting a focus error signal using an astigmatic detection method.
The photodetector may detect a tracking error signal using a DPP method or DPD method. The DPP method will be briefly described below.
In general, the main luminous flux and the sub-luminous flux are irradiated onto the optical disc keeping a distance of half track, and the two sub-luminous fluxes are irradiated onto the optical disc keeping a distance of one track. Accordingly, the main PP signal and the sub PP signal are output while the phases of signals are shifted by 180 degrees from each other. Therefore, both of the main PP signal and the sub PP signal are amplified by respective appropriate amplification factors K1 and K2 using the amplifiers 32 and 33, and then, subtracted using the subtracter 34. This makes it possible to remove unnecessary direct current components or disturbance components with the same phase included in both of the main PP signal and the sub PP signal and obtain the DPP signals as preferable tracking error signals. An illustration will be omitted, and when photo-detection sensitivity of the sub-luminous flux light receiving surface of the photodetector is set to be higher than that of the main luminous flux light receiving surface, a predetermined signal may be amplified also in the photodetector.
As described above, using the simple optical system structure, the DPP method can remove an offset of the tracking error signal that involves a tracking displacement of the objective lens and stably detect the tracking error signal with high quality. In addition, the DPP method is a widely-used detection method in terms of usefulness.
As to an objective lens position control, the optical pickup device performs a position control in the tracking direction as well as a focus position control as a position control along the optical axis direction. As an error signal detection method for use in this focus position control, an astigmatic detection method is widely used in general. In the same manner as in the tracking control, a predetermined arithmetic processing is performed to detection signals from each light receiving surface of the photodetector illustrated in
However, when this DPP method is used for the optical pickup device or optical disc apparatus that records and/or reproduces data onto and/or from an optical disc in which recording layers are multilayered, there newly arises the following problem.
When recording and/or reproducing data onto and/or from the multi-layer optical disc, the optical disc apparatus converges each luminous flux on the recording layers (hereinafter, referred to as a target layer) to be recorded or to reproduce signals among respective recording layers to detect its reflected light. On this occasion, a part of the light amount fails to be reflected by the target layer and is reflected by recording layers (hereinafter, referred to as the other layers) except the target layer. The luminous fluxes from the other layers follow an optical path nearly the same as that of the signal luminous flux from the target layer and enters each light receiving surface within the photodetector to become an unwanted luminous flux that prevents the signal luminous flux from being correctly detected.
This unwanted luminous flux optically causes interference with original signal luminous flux and generates interference fringes on the light receiving surface. A bright-dark pattern of the interference fringes disturbs the light amount balance on each light receiving surface to become an unwanted disturbance component and exerts an influence on the output signals from each light receiving surface. As a result, the unwanted disturbance component causes large deterioration in the recording or reproduction quality.
At first, as a conventional example, this phenomenon will be specifically described by a dual-layer optical disc having two recording layers (layer spacing: δ) 35 and 36.
The sub PP signal for use in the detection of the tracking error signal using the DPP method is generally smaller than the main PP signal in the signal intensity. Accordingly, the light amount of the unwanted luminous flux is larger than that of the sub-luminous flux signal luminous flux, and therefore, the sub PP signal is easy to come under the influence of disturbance. Particularly, the problem is that when generating the tracking error signal using the DPP method, since the sub PP signal is amplified by the amplifier 33, the disturbance components caused by interference of the unwanted luminous flux are also amplified. As a result, the tracking error signal detected by the DPP method_includes a large waveform distortion or fluctuation, and signal quality is largely deteriorated.
To cope with the above-described problem, the diffractive optical element 9 including a diffraction region for diffracting a part of the main luminous flux and the sub-luminous flux is used in the conventional example described in Patent Document 1 to suppress stray light interference. Hereinafter, a structure of this conventional example will be briefly described.
In the conventional example, the oblong diffraction region analogous to a shape of the photodetector 14 is formed on a central part of the effective luminous flux, and the unwanted luminous flux dark region 40 with a shape analogous to that of the photodetector is formed on a part overlapping with the photodetector in the unwanted luminous flux. This makes it possible to suppress the unwanted luminous flux from entering the photodetector and reduce deterioration in the tracking error signal. In addition, unwanted luminous flux diffracted light 62 diffracted by the diffraction region 39 of the diffractive optical element 9 is irradiated onto the outside of the photodetector. Similarly, the main luminous flux and the sub-luminous flux as a signal luminous flux also forms signal luminous flux dark regions 45, 46, and 47 each having no light amount using the diffractive optical element 9, and its diffracted light is irradiated onto the outside of the light receiving surface to thereby form diffracted light spots 48, 49, and 50.
At present, a Blu-ray disc (hereinafter, referred to as BD) or DVD has a standard of the dual-layer optical disc, and therefore, the conventional example is effective in the dual-layer optical disc. However, in recent years, a multi-layer optical disc in which a further increase in the storage capacity is designed and that has three or more recording layers is watched. Next, a case of recording and/or reproducing data onto and/or from this multi-layer optical disc will be described with reference to
At this time, when the layer spacings δ1 and δ2 are at the same level as that δ of the dual-layer optical disc, stray light can be avoided using a structure of the conventional example. However, at the time of multilayering the optical disc, when a layer spacing (hereinafter, referred to as an adjacent layer spacing) of adjacent layers is set to be the same as that of the dual-layer optical disc, a layer spacing (hereinafter, referred to as a maximum layer spacing) between a recording layer nearest to a disc surface and a recording layer farthest to a disc surface remarkably becomes large. Since a difference between cover layer thicknesses causes an aberration that deteriorates quality of a converged light spot on a recording surface, the recording or reproduction quality is largely reduced. For the purpose of correcting the aberration that occurs due to a difference between the cover layer thicknesses, a BD dual-layer optical disc having a recording layer spacing of 25 μm generally mounts the spherical aberration correction unit 43. When a thickness of this cover layer increases by a factor of two due to the multilayer, an aberration correction range is largely widened, and therefore, the optical system becomes larger and more complex and incurs a cost increase. Accordingly, the necessity of multilayering the recording layer increases in the multi-layer optical disc while making the adjacent layer spacing narrower than that of the conventional dual-layer optical disc. When the maximum layer spacing of the dual-layer optical disc is maintained also in the multi-layer optical disc, the adjacent layer spacing is supposed to need to be narrowed up to approximately half of the maximum layer spacing in the three-layer optical disc or approximately 30% of the maximum layer spacing in the four-layer optical disc.
When the adjacent layer spacing is narrowed in the multi-layer optical disc, there newly arises the following problem.
As a method for avoiding the problem, a width in the direction corresponding to the optical disc radial direction of the oblong diffraction region 39 is enlarged. By use of the above-described method, a region of the unwanted luminous flux dark region 40 on the photodetector can also be widened and the unwanted luminous flux can be prevented from entering the photodetector surface. However, here, the problem is the following. That is, when the oblong diffraction region of the conventional example is enlarged as it is, the diffraction region acts also on the signal luminous flux. Therefore, light of the PP signal region 44 required for detecting the tracking error signal is also diffracted to exert a harmful influence on the signal quality.
To cope with the above-described problem, in the present embodiment, as a method for solving the problem peculiar to the multi-layer optical disc, provided is the diffractive optical element 9 with a diffraction region shape in which also when the unwanted luminous flux shape is largely distorted in the multi-layer optical disc having narrowed therein the adjacent layer spacing, the unwanted luminous flux is prevented from entering the photodetector and an influence on the signal luminous flux of the PP signal region is suppressed. A shape of the PP signal region 44 of the signal luminous flux 37 is first characterized by the fact that the region width T in the optical disc radial direction changes corresponding to a position in the optical disc tangential direction as illustrated in
Since the unwanted luminous flux rotates at an angle of 90 degrees in the obliquely-distorted direction based on whether the other layers are located on an in-focus side or on out-focus side, the diffraction region shape 39 of the diffractive optical element 9 may be nearly line-symmetrical with respect to the optical disc tangential direction. The diffraction region 39 may be transformed according to a shape of the photodetector. On this occasion, the diffraction region shape 39 may be determined by taking into consideration a shape in which an unwanted luminous flux spot is distorted and PP signal region in the effective luminous flux in the multi-layer optical disc. As the diffraction region of the diffractive optical element, for example, a diffraction grating or polarization diffraction grating may be used. The polarization diffraction grating acts, when used as the diffraction region, only on an incoming luminous flux after the reflection from the optical disc and fails to exert an influence on a spot shape on the optical disc. A spectral ratio of the diffraction region 39 may be variedly set, and the light amount of 0th-order diffracted light may be minimized to reduce the light amount of the unwanted luminous flux dark region 40 as much as possible. In addition, gratings of the unwanted luminous flux dark region 40 may be blazed. When the quarter wave plate 10 and the diffractive optical element 9 are installed within the actuator 15, the proposed optical pickup device can suppress the unwanted luminous flux dark region 40 from moving on the photodetector 14 to the objective lens shift. Accordingly, the optical pickup device can suppress the unwanted luminous fluxes 38 and 41 from entering the photodetector 14 at the time of the objective lens shift. Further, when the quarter wave plate 10 and the diffractive optical element 9 are integrated to treat the integrated components as one optical component, assembly and adjustment can be more simplified.
Each signal luminous flux dark region 45, 46, and 47 having no light amount is formed also in the main luminous flux and sub-luminous flux as the signal luminous flux as described above, and its diffracted light is irradiated onto the outside of light receiving surface to form each diffracted light spot 48, 49, and 50. Therefore, an information reproduction signal obtained from the main luminous flux light receiving surface 16 might be deteriorated. To cope with the above-described problem, an exclusive light receiving surface 51 is newly provided within the photodetector, and the light amount of the main luminous flux diffracted by the diffractive optical element 9 is also detected. A current signal is generated from the exclusive light receiving surface 51 according to the intensity of incident light and converted into a voltage signal by the current-voltage conversion amplifier 69. The converted signal is added to an information reproduction signal obtained from the main luminous flux light receiving surface 16, thereby preventing deterioration in the information reproduction signal. If gratings of the diffraction region are blazed, one exclusive light receiving surface may be newly added. This makes it possible to obtain preferable information reproduction signals in which jitter values are improved.
Next,
Here, the main luminous flux light receiving surface 16 is divided into four respective divided regions 16a, 16b, 16c, and 16d, and the light amount signals each obtained from the respective divided regions are denoted as A, B, C, and D. Further, the sub-luminous flux light receiving surface 17 is divided into respective regions 17a and 17b, and the sub-luminous flux light receiving surface 18 is divided into respective regions 18a and 18b, and the light amount signals each obtained from the respective divided regions are denoted as I, J, K, and L. Further, the light amount signal obtained from the exclusive light receiving surface 51 is denoted as R. The focus error signal (FES) detected by the astigmatism method is obtained by the calculation of
FES:(A+C)−(B+D)
TES(DPP):k1[(A+B)−(C+D)]−k2[(I−J)+(K−L)].
The tracking error signal (TES) detected by the DPD method is obtained from a phase comparator 56 by phase-comparing two signals of
TES(DPD):(A+C)and(B+D).
The information reproduction signal (SUM) is obtained by the calculation of
SUM:A+B+C+D+R
When a predetermined switching unit 68 selects whether to receive light diffracted by the diffractive optical element to add its received light signal to a signal, a function of the photodetector according to the present embodiment can be combined with that of the conventional photodetector. This makes it possible to select the function corresponding to the number of the recording layers of the optical disc to be recorded or reproduced, and improve flexibility of the optical pickup device. Further, when the exclusive light receiving surface 51 is divided to detect signals, the signals may be added also to the tracking error signal or focus error signal to detect signals.
Next, a second embodiment will be described with reference to
As a result of geometric-optical investigation, when the diffractive optical element 9 according to the first embodiment is provided, the unwanted luminous flux seems to be prevented from entering the photodetector. However, as a result of wave-optical investigation, the light amount slightly leaks also in a dark region to generate interference with the signal luminous flux, and the interference could be factors to cause fluctuation in the tracking error signal. To cope with the above-described problem, as a result of the wave-optical investigation on an influence exerted on the sub PP signal by the interference generated between the unwanted luminous flux and the signal luminous flux, the present inventors have found that among imbalances of the light amount caused by the interference, an imbalance of the light amount caused by the interference on the dividing lines 52 and 53 provided within each sub-luminous flux light receiving surface 17 and 18 and in the vicinity thereof as illustrated in
Further, the diffractive optical element 9 according to the present embodiment may be the same as that of the first embodiment. The light receiving surface pattern of the photodetector 14 according to the present embodiment is characterized by the fact that a width W of a side in the direction corresponding to the optical disc radial direction has stripe-shaped light-shielding zones or dead zones 54 and 55 set to the after-mentioned size on the central dividing lines 52 and 53 and in the vicinity thereof on the sub-luminous flux light receiving surfaces 17 and 18. Variance of an adjustment position and component performance of the photodetector could be factors to cause further increase in a signal fluctuation caused by interference of the unwanted luminous flux. As a result of extensive investigation, the present inventors have found_that by using this structure, also when variance of the component_performance is present, the signal fluctuation caused by interference can be suppressed up to approximately 50% as compared with the first embodiment. Such a significant reduction effect in terms of manufacturing variance and variation per hour has a significant benefit of improvement in the yield at the time of mass production.
FES:(A+C)−(B+D)
TES(DPP):k1[(A+B)−(C+D)]−k2[(I−J)+(K−L)].
The tracking error signal by the DPD method is obtained by phase-comparing two signals of
TES(DPD):(A+C)and(B+D)
SUM:A+B+C+D+R
The light receiving surface is covered with a medium in which transmissivity of light is nearly equal to zero, for example, aluminum and incidence of the luminous flux on the light receiving surface is shielded, thereby realizing the light-shielding zone. A light-shielding medium is not limited to a substance in which transmissivity is nearly equal to zero over the total wavelength bands of light, for example, aluminum. As a light-shielding medium, a substance having wavelength selectivity such that transmissivity is nearly equal to zero over a predetermined wavelength band may be used. For example, when the light receiving surface of a predetermined part is eliminated, a signal current is not generated even if a luminous flux enters the photodetector surface of the predetermined part. This enables the dead zone to be realized. The width W of a short side of the light-shielding zone and the dead zone is effectively set in the range of approximately 20 to 40% with respect to a diameter of the converged light spots 4 and 5 of sub-luminous fluxes made incident on the light receiving regions 17a, 17b, and 18a, 18b in terms of elimination of the interference fluctuation of the unwanted luminous flux. In a normal optical pickup device, the converged light spot of the sub-luminous flux on the light receiving surface is most commonly designed to have a diameter of approximately 100 μm. Therefore, the width W may be set in the range of approximately 20 to 40 μm. Note, however, that shapes of the light-shielding zone and the dead zone may not necessarily be strip-shaped.
In addition, the photodetector may be structured as illustrated in
On the other hand, there are generated one signal obtained by adding signals from the light receiving surfaces 17a and 17b, another signal obtained by adding signals from the light receiving surfaces 17c and 17d using adders 84 and 85, another signal obtained by adding signals from the light receiving surfaces 18a and 18b, and another signal obtained by adding signals from the light receiving surfaces 18c and 18d using adders 86 and 87. The sub PP signal obtained from these signals by the same arithmetic processing as that of the above description is the same as the sub PP signal obtained from the conventional photodetector illustrated in
That is, the present embodiment has the benefit of being able to provide the optical pickup device capable of improving an effect of suppressing an interference fluctuation, suppressing an interference fluctuation also at the time of variance such as component adjustment variance to detect a preferable tracking error signal, and significantly improving a yield also at the time of mass production as compared to the first embodiment.
Next, a third embodiment will be described.
There is a problem that in the DPP method, in order that the sub PP signal with the small light amount may be amplified by the amplifier 33 to generate the DPP signal, an interference disturbance component of the unwanted luminous flux leaking in the sub PP signal is also amplified by the amplifier 33. To cope with the above-described problem, the present embodiment provides the optical pickup device that has a structure in which the amplification factor K2 of the amplifier 33 can be suppressed smaller than that of the conventional DPP method to further suppress an interference fluctuation of the DPP method and have resistance also to a disc defect such as a blemish.
An optical system structure of the optical pickup device according to the present embodiment may be the same as, for example, that of the optical pickup device illustrated in
A spectral ratio of the diffraction grating 2 as the luminous flux dividing element is generally set to approximately 1:10 to 1:15. Accordingly, since a difference in the light amount is present between the main luminous flux and the sub-luminous flux, the sub PP signal is required to be amplified by the amplifier 33 for generating the DPP signal capable of canceling an objective lens shift offset. Since the two sub-luminous fluxes are present, the amplification factor K2, for example, at the time when a spectral ratio is 1:15 is equal to approximately 7.5 being half of 15. Here, when a fluctuation component Δ caused by the unwanted luminous flux interference is generated on the sub PP signal, the DPP signal is generated by the following formula and therefore, found to be amplified by the amplifier including the fluctuation component Δ caused by interference.
DPP=MPP+K2(SPP+Δ)
Accordingly, when the amplification factor K2 is smaller than a spectral ratio and the DPP signal is capable of cancelling the objective lens shift offset, the optical pickup device can more reduce the interference fluctuation amount relative to the amplitude of the DPP signal. The present writer has estimated that when the amplification factor K2 can be reduced up to approximately 2.5 (normally, K2=approximately 7.5), even if a fluctuation caused by interference with the same amplitude is generated on the sub PP signal, a fluctuation of the DPP signal can be suppressed up to approximately half level of a conventional amplitude. In addition, when suppressing the amplification factor K2 smaller than that of the conventional DPP method, the proposed optical pickup device has the benefit of being able to suppress the amplification exerting an influence on the sub PP signal relative to a disc defect such as scratch and dirt of an optical disc and generate the DPP signal.
Under these conditions, the present embodiment provides a unit capable of suppressing the amplification of an interference disturbance component caused by the unwanted luminous flux by the amplifier 33 and stably detecting a stable and preferable tracking error signal with the reduced waveform fluctuation also at the time of recording and/or reproducing data onto and/or from the multi-layer optical disc when providing a unit capable of preferably canceling an offset generated at the time of objective lens shift even if a value of the amplification factor K2 of the amplifier 33 is smaller than a spectral ratio and detecting a tracking error signal by the DPP method.
The present embodiment uses the diffractive optical element 9 according to the first embodiment and the photodetector 14 having the light-shielding zone and dead zone according to the second embodiment as one example of a unit of preferably detecting the tracking error signal by the DPP method even if the amplification factor K2 of the sub-luminous flux signal amplifier 33 is smaller than a spectral ratio.
As described above, the main luminous flux and the sub-luminous flux forms signal luminous flux dark regions 45 to 47 each having no light amount using the diffractive optical element 9, and its diffracted light is irradiated to the outside of the light receiving surfaces 16 to 18 of the photodetector to thereby form diffracted light spots 48 to 50. A width S′ of a side corresponding to the radial direction of the dark regions 45 to 47 of the signal luminous flux central part is mainly determined by S1.
When the objective lens shift occurs, converged positions of the main luminous flux and the sub-luminous flux on the photodetector surface move to the optical disc radial direction (in the vertical direction in
To cope with the above-described problem, an objective lens shift range of the optical pickup device is defined as L, and a converged light spot moving range on the photodetector surface due to the objective lens shift is defined as L′. Relationships between S and S′ as well as L and L′ are uniquely determined by a structure of the optical pickup device. When a width S′ of the diffraction region is larger than the converged light spot moving range L′ on the photodetector surface due to the objective lens shift, namely, when the diffraction region width S1 is larger than the objective lens shift range L, some region of the light amount is prevented from lying on the dividing line, and therefore, the reduction effect of the generation amount of offset at the time of the objective lens shift is exerted. Note, however, that when the diffraction region width S1 is larger than the luminous flux diameter by approximately 50%, the luminous flux on the PP signal region is also diffracted to exert a harmful influence on signals.
Accordingly, when the width S1 of the diffraction region is longer than the objective lens shift range L and within the range shorter than 50% of the luminous flux diameter, it is effective in suppressing the signal offset generated on the main PP signal at the time of the objective lens shift. In general, for example, a ratio of the objective lens shift amount to the luminous flux diameter is approximately 10%. Accordingly, a ratio of the width S1 of the diffraction region to the luminous flux diameter may be in the range of approximately 10 to 50%. By the above-described structure, the main luminous flux dark region lies on the dividing line of the photodetector, and therefore, can largely prevent the offset from being generated over the entire objective lens shift range. As a well-balanced structure in which the offset is prevented from being generated at the time of the objective lens shift and an influence on the amplitude of the PP signal can be reduced, sizes of the diffraction region width S1 and the objective lens shift range L may have nearly the same value.
However, in the above-described structure, since the dark region is generated on the central part also in the sub-luminous flux, the generation amount of the offset is reduced with respect to the objective lens shift in the same manner as in the main luminous flux. For the purpose, the amplification factor K2 is not reduced and, after all, becomes equal to a spectral ratio level. To cope with the above-described problem, a device for increasing an offset generation sensitivity with respect to the objective lens shift is required only in the sub PP signal. The photodetector having provided thereon the light-shielding zones or dead zones 54 and 55 with the width W within the sub-luminous flux light receiving surfaces 17 and 18 may be used. By providing the light-shielding zone, since the dark region in the sub-luminous flux is hidden by the light-shielding zone, an spot area of the sub-luminous flux made incident on each light receiving surface region of the sub-luminous flux photodetector is changed at the time of the objective lens shift, thereby suppressing reduction in the offset generation sensitivity of the sub PP signal. Accordingly, the light-shielding zones having the width W such that the dark regions 46 and 47 of the sub-luminous flux generated by the diffractive optical element 9 are hidden by the light-shielding zones also at the time of the objective lens shift may be provided. In order that the dark regions 46 and 47 may be prevented from running over the light-shielding zones also at the time of the objective lens shift, the light-shielding zone width W taking into consideration also a moving part L′ due to the objective lens shift in addition to the diffraction region width S′ may be adopted. Note, however, that as a result of extensive investigation, the present writer has found that the light-shielding zone width W shields, when being larger than approximately 50% of the luminous flux diameter, also the luminous flux in the PP signal region to exert a harmful influence on the detection signals. Therefore, when the width W of the light-shielding zone is longer than the sum (L′+S′) of the width S′ of the dark region of the sub-luminous flux spot on the photodetector surface formed by the diffraction region having the width S1 of the diffraction region 39 and the moving amount L′ of the sub-luminous flux spot on the sub-luminous flux light receiving surface in the objective lens shift range L and within the range shorter than 50% of a diameter of the sub-luminous flux spot, the offset generation sensitivity of the sub PP signal to the objective lens shift can be increased to be made effective. For example, when a ratio of the objective lens shift amount L to the luminous flux diameter is set to approximately 10%, the moving amount L′ also becomes equal to approximately 10% of the sub-luminous flux spot diameter on the sub-luminous flux light receiving surface. As described above, since a ratio of the width S1 of the diffraction region to the luminous flux diameter is within the range of approximately 10 to 50%, a ratio of the width S′ of the sub-luminous flux dark region is geometric-optically within the range of approximately 10 to 50% of the sub-luminous flux spot diameter on the sub-luminous flux light receiving surface. In this case, a ratio of the light-shielding zone width W to the luminous flux diameter on the light receiving surface is within the range of approximately 20 to 50%. However, when adding a wave-optical effect to the above-described matter, the sub-luminous flux spot has the light amount distribution in the direction narrower than the geometric-optically found width S′ of the dark region of the sub-luminous flux spot. Therefore, the light-shielding zone width W may have a value smaller than the sum (L′+S′) of the geometric-optically found width S′ of the dark region of the sub-luminous flux spot and the moving amount L′ of the sub-luminous flux spot on the sub-luminous flux light receiving surface due to the objective lens shift. When taking into consideration this effective width S″ in the dark region, as a result of extensive investigation, the present writer has found that the light-shielding zone width W may have a value smaller than the sum (L′+S′) by 20 to 40% as a well-balanced structure in which the amplification factor K2 is suppressed smaller than the spectral ratio and an influence on the PP signal amplitude is reduced. Accordingly, when a ratio of the light-shielding zone width W to the sub-luminous flux spot diameter on the light receiving surface is within the range of approximately 10 to 50%, the preferable DPP signal can be obtained over the entire objective lens shift range.
Note, however, that since the diffraction region shape satisfies a relational expression: region width S1<region width S2, a part of the dark region runs over the light-shielding zone. The above-described fact slightly causes an increase in the amplification factor K2. For the purpose of solving the above-described problem, a shape of the light-shielding zone or the dead zone on the light receiving surface may be that analogous to the diffraction region. As one example,
Further, since the unwanted luminous flux dark region is caused by the diffraction region in the diffractive optical element, the unwanted luminous flux is suppressed from entering the photodetector. Accordingly, the interference suppression effect according to the first embodiment can be maintained.
The generation amount of fluctuation of the sub PP signal is considered, since largely depending also on a variance of a component attaching position or a component performance, to exert a significant influence also on improvement in the yield at the time of mass production.
Further, an operation method for generating a focus error signal, a tracking error signal, and an information reproduction signal from the photodetector 14 according to the present embodiment may be the same as that according to the second embodiment.
That is, the present embodiment can suppress interference of the unwanted luminous flux also at the time of variance such as component adjustment variance and also suppress a disturbance response of the sub PP signal to a disc defect such as scratch since an amplification factor of the amplifier can be reduced as compared with the second embodiment. Therefore, the present embodiment has the benefit of being able to provide the optical pickup device capable of significantly improving a yield at the time of mass production and detecting a preferable tracking error signal also at the time of causing a disc defect.
In addition, the present invention is not limited to the above-described embodiments and includes various modification examples. For example, the above-described embodiments have been described in detail for intelligibly describing the present invention and not necessarily limited to an apparatus including all the described structures. A part of structures according to an embodiment can be substituted for a structure according to another embodiment, and further, a structure according to another embodiment can be added to a structure according to an embodiment. Further, addition, deletion or substitution of another structure can be performed to a part of structures according to each embodiment.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
---|---|---|---|
2009-209966 | Sep 2009 | JP | national |