Patent ID: 7746453
Filing Date: 2010-06-29
Classification: G01N

Abstract:
1. A defect inspection apparatus for inspecting a defect on a sample surface, comprising: an illuminating unit constructed to introduce light via a fiber bundle and to transmit the light through a plurality of optical paths for illuminating each of a plurality of regions on said sample surface; an image forming unit for forming optical images of each said region of said sample surface illuminated by light from said illuminating unit; a plurality of detecting units for detecting said optical images formed by said image forming unit and detecting reflected light from said sample surface; and a defect detecting unit for processing said reflected light detected by said plurality of detecting units and detecting a defect on said sample surface, wherein substantially the same region on said sample surface is illuminated at mutually different timings with light through each said optical path, wherein lengths of each said mutually different timings are different from each other, and wherein mutually different detectors detect reflected light from said same region at mutually different timings and the defect of said same region is detected on the basis of detection signals from said mutually different detectors.