Patent ID: 7463350
Filing Date: 2008-12-09
Classification: G01N

Abstract:
1. An apparatus for detecting defects of a sample, comprising: an illumination light source that emits pulsed ultraviolet laser light; a polarized light splitter unit that splits each pulse of the pulsed ultraviolet laser light emitted from the illumination light source into plural pulses of P-polarized laser light and S-polarized laser light; an irradiating unit that selectively irradiates a sample with the split ultraviolet P-polarized and S-polarized ultraviolet laser light split by the polarized light splitter unit from a perpendicular direction with the split S-polarized ultraviolet laser light and from an oblique direction to the sample with the split P-polarized ultraviolet laser light; a light detecting unit that detects light from the sample irradiated with the split polarized ultraviolet laser light by the selected oblique irradiation of the irradiating unit with the split P-polarized ultraviolet laser and by the selected perpendicular irradiation of the irradiating unit with the split S-polarized ultraviolet laser light; and a defect detecting unit that detects defects of the sample by processing a signal outputted from the light detecting unit which includes a dark field signal obtained by separately detecting the light from the sample caused by the selected oblique irradiation with the split P-polarized ultraviolet laser light and a bright field signal obtained by separately detecting the light from the sample caused by the selected perpendicular irradiation with the split S-polarized ultraviolet laser light.