Patent ID: 8599369

Claim:
A defect inspection method, comprising: regulating illumination light emitted from a light source to be a beam of light having a desired quantity of light, a desired position, a desired beam diameter, and a desired polarization state, by using a regulation unit including an attenuator, exit beam regulator, beam expander, and polarization controller; guiding the beam obtained in the step of regulating illumination light to a specimen surface at a desired angle of incidence, and controlling an illumination intensity distribution, by using an illumination intensity distribution controller, so that the illumination intensity distribution of light illuminating the surface of the specimen is substantially uniform in a certain direction on the specimen surface; scanning the specimen, at a position on the specimen surface where the specimen is irradiated with the illumination light in the step of guiding the beam, by moving a stage on which the specimen is mounted, in a direction substantially perpendicular to the direction in which the illumination intensity distribution is substantially uniform; detecting, with sensors, scattered light emitted from the specimen surface in the specimen scanning step, wherein a plurality of scattered-light components are emitted in a plurality of directions different from each other, and outputting a plurality of scattered-light detection signals from the sensors corresponding to the detected scattered-light components; determining existence of a defect by using a high-pass filter configured to process at least one of the scattered-light detection signals obtained in the step of detecting scattered-light; determining a size of the defect with a defect determining unit by processing at least one of the scattered-light detection signals corresponding to sections determined to be defective in the step of determining existence of defect; and displaying on a display unit, of the section determined to be defective in the step of determining a size of the defect, position on the specimen surface and the defect size obtained in the step of determining a size of the defect; wherein in the step of regulating illumination light, the quantity of light of the beam is set based on a maximum value of specimen surface temperature rises, calculated by using data of a size of an illumination spot on the specimen surface and a thermal conductivity and a thermal diffusivity of a material of the specimen surface.