Patent ID: 8416402

Claim:
A method that detects defects of a specimen, comprising the steps: illuminating the specimen surface with a plurality of illumination lights each having a different wavelength; detecting a plurality of images by detecting a plurality of scattered lights each having a different wavelength condition or polarization condition from a predetermined region of the specimen surface illuminated by the illumination lights; image-processing each of the plurality of images that were detected, wherein the image-processing step provides a first processing step and a second processing step; the first processing step calculates a plurality of feature quantities by processing each of the plurality of images and calculates defect candidates to the each of the plurality of images by processing the each of the plurality of feature quantities; and the second processing step sorts kinds of the defect candidates calculated using the plurality of images in the first processing step when at least one of the defect candidates is calculated from the plurality of images in the first processing step, wherein a plurality of images are detected by detecting a plurality of scattered lights each having a different wavelength condition and spatial filtering condition in the detecting step.