Patent ID: 8565861

Claim:
An optical inspection device comprising: a light generation unit; a light irradiation unit irradiating an object to be inspected with light generated from the light generation unit; a photodetection unit photoelectrically converting signal light obtained from the object to be inspected through irradiation of light by the light irradiation unit, and inspecting the object to be inspected based on output from the photodetection unit; a light amplification unit amplifying signal light obtained from the object to be inspected; an optical multiplex-demultiplex unit demultiplexing light from the light generation unit to inspection light and reference light so that the object to be inspected is irradiated with the inspection light by the light irradiation unit and the reference light is guided to a light reflection unit, amplifying, by the light amplification unit, reflected inspection light obtained in a way that the inspection light is reflected and scattered by the object to be inspected, and multiplexing the amplified reflected inspection light and reflected reference light obtained in a way that the reference light is reflected by the light reflection unit so as to generate interference light; an analog signal process unit attenuating low-frequency components of photoelectric conversion signals obtained from the photodetection unit relative to high-frequency components thereof; an analog-digital conversion unit converting analog output signals from the analog signal process unit to digital signals; and an image process unit processing digital output signals from the analog-digital conversion unit so as to generate an optical tomographic image, wherein the light generation unit is a wavelength-variable light source unit emitting light whose wavelength varies with time; and the photodetection unit is a photoelectrical conversion unit receiving interference light generated by the optical multiplex-demultiplex unit and photoelectrically converting the same.