Patent ID: 7826047

Claim:
An optical inspection apparatus, comprising: a light source which emits light of a wide wavelength band; an illumination optical system which irradiates an object to be inspected that is formed on a sample with the light of the wide wavelength band that is emitted from the light source; a detection optical system which includes a wavelength separation element and a plurality of image sensors, the wavelength separation element being formed such that reflection light having the wide wavelength band obtained from the object on the sample with which the light has been irradiated by the illumination optical system is separated into plural light paths by the wavelength bands, each of a plurality of image sensors is positioned in respective optical paths of the reflection light separated by the wavelength separation element and receiving optical image of each of the reflection lights separated by the wavelength separation element so as to output each of image signals; and an image processing unit which detects defects of interest; wherein the image processing unit selects a desired image signal which suppresses detection of false defects according to kind of the object to be inspected, from the image signals obtained from the plurality of image sensors in the detection optical system, and detects the defects of interest by processing the selected image signal.