Patent ID: 8228494

Claim:
A defect inspection apparatus comprising: an illumination optical system which conducts illumination upon the surface of a sample with irradiation light; a detection optical system which includes a reflecting objective lens for converging light scattered from the surface of the sample that has been illuminated by the illumination optical system, and wavelength separation optics for conducting wavelength separation of the scattered light that has been converged by the reflecting objective lens, and after the wavelength separation, branching the scattered light into at least a first detection optical path and a second detection optical path, wherein the detection optical system further includes, on the first detection optical path, a first optics for collecting onto a light-receiving surface of a first sensor the first scattered light having a wavelength band which has been selected by the wavelength separation optics, and wherein the detection optical system further includes, on the second detection optical path, second optics for collecting onto a light-receiving surface of a second sensor the second scattered light having a wavelength band which has been selected by the wavelength separation optics; and a signal processor which, in accordance with at least one of a first signal obtained from the first sensor of the detection optical system and a second signal obtained from the second sensor, discriminates defects or defect candidates present on the surface of the sample.