The invention relates to an optical pickup for an optical recording medium (1), an electrically controlled diffraction grating (11) suitable for use in such a pickup, and to an apparatus for reading from and/or writing to optical recording media (1) using such an optical pickup or diffraction grating (11). According to the invention, an optical pickup for optical recording media (1) having two ormore data tracks (4), with a light source (10) for emitting a light beam for reading from and/or writing to an optical recording medium (1), includes an electrically controlled diffraction grating (11), which is switchable between at least two states for generating one or more light beams from the light beam emitted by the light source (10) for reading from and/or writing to one or more of the data tracks (4).