Patent ID: 7525649

Claim:
A surface inspection apparatus, comprising: an illumination system configured to focus a beam of radiation at a non-orthogonal incidence angle relative to a surface to form an illumination line on the surface substantially in a plane of incidence of the focused beam, wherein the plane of incidence is defined by the focused beam and a direction that is through the focused beam and normal to the surface; and a collection system configured to image the illumination line, wherein the collection system comprises: an imaging lens for collecting light scattered from a region of the surface comprising the illumination line; a focusing lens for focusing the collected light; and a device comprising an array of light sensitive elements, wherein each light sensitive element of the array of light sensitive elements is configured to detect a corresponding portion of a magnified image of the illumination line, and wherein the collection system is configured to image the illumination line in a manner such that the width of the imaged illumination line on the array of detectors is larger than the pixel size of the detectors along the same direction.