Patent ID: 8493557

Claim:
A surface inspecting method employing a surface inspecting apparatus, the surface inspecting apparatus comprising: an inspection object moving means for rotating the inspection object as a main scan and translating the inspection object as an auxiliary scan, illuminating means for illuminating a surface of the inspection object with illuminating light and thereby forming an illumination spot as an illumination area of the illuminating light, optical detector means for detecting scattered or diffracted or reflected light from the illumination spot, and foreign object detecting means for detecting a foreign object existing on the surface of the inspection object or in a part of the inspection object in the vicinity of the surface based on a result of the detection supplied from the optical detector means, wherein: translation speed of the auxiliary scan by the inspection object moving means is controlled according to distance from a rotation center of the inspection object in the main scan to the illumination spot, and rotation speed of the inspection object moving means in the main scan is kept constant.