In an optical pickup for irradiating a laser beam emitted from a photoemission element on a disk-like recording medium through an objective lens, there is provided a diffraction element including a first region for splitting the laser beam emitted from the photoemission element into a main beam and a pair of first sub-beams and a second region for splitting the laser into a main beam and a pair of second sub-beams, wherein a following relation hold or approximately hold: (2n-1).times.P/2, where D is a distance between a spot center of the first sub-beam and a spot center of the second sub-beam, the spots being formed on a recording surface of the disk-like recording medium spaced in a substantially radial direction of the disk-like recording medium, n is a natural number, and P is a track pitch of the disk-like recording medium.