An optical pickup apparatus for use with a semiconductor laser which outputs a light beam, the optical pickup apparatus has; a diffraction grating for diffracting the light beam into diffracted light; a collimator lens for rendering the diffracted light diffracted by the diffraction grating as a parallel beam; an objective lens for focusing the parallel beam towards an optical information recording medium; a hologram element for diffracting return light reflected from the optical information recording medium; a plurality of light receiving elements for receiving the diffracted light diffracted by the hologram element; and an incidence preventing area placed between the hologram element and the light receiving elements for, in the case where the light beam is focused on the recording surface on a side close to the objective lens out of recording surfaces of multilayer of the optical information recording medium, substantially preventing reflected light from the recording surface on a side remote from the objective lens from entering the light receiving elements.