An optical pickup device is equipped with a diffraction element (8) that includes liquid crystal, two transparent electrodes sandwiching the liquid crystal, and a liquid crystal control portion (21) with electrodes connected electrically to the transparent electrode for controlling a voltage to be applied between the two transparent electrodes. The diffraction element (8) is provided with two types of diffraction areas (19) and (20). Each of the diffraction areas (19) and (20) generate predetermined diffracted light only from one of different wavelengths of light beams. The transparent electrodes of the diffraction areas (19) and (20) that are patterned are connected electrically to different electrodes (22c) and (22a), respectively.