Patent ID: 8004666

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 imaging optics for imaging onto a light-receiving surface of a first image 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 imaging optics for imaging onto a light-receiving surface of a second image sensor the second scattered light having a wavelength band which has been selected by the wavelength separation optics; and an image processor which, in accordance with at least one of a first image signal obtained from the first image sensor of the detection optical system and a second image signal obtained from the second image sensor, discriminates defects or defect candidates present on the surface of the sample.