Provided is an optical structure 100 that includes: a polarizing beam splitter A which splits input light input from an incoming plane thereof into first polarized light and second polarized light and in which split angles, which are angles formed by traveling directions of rays of the first polarized light and traveling directions of rays of the second polarized light, are acute angles; and a diffractive optical element B which is disposed at a stage subsequent to the polarizing beam splitter A and has a plurality of light transmission regions separated at a prescribed pitch. Since the diffractive optical element B having a prescribed pitch is used, the diffractive optical element B can perform deflection while having a smaller size than a Wollaston prism, and application to various fields is expected.