The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
May. 13, 2008
Filed:
Aug. 23, 2006
Takeo Oomori, Sagamihara, JP;
Kazuhiko Fukazawa, Kamakura, JP;
Takeo Oomori, Sagamihara, JP;
Kazuhiko Fukazawa, Kamakura, JP;
Nikon Corporation, Tokyo, JP;
Abstract
The present invention aims to provide a surface defect inspection apparatus and a surface defect inspection method for properly inspecting for a concave-shaped flaw (or a part thereof) substantially in parallel with a plane of incidence. The apparatus includes an illumination unitilluminating a front surface (surface under inspection) of an object to be inspectedwith illumination light for inspection, a changing unitwhich relatively rotating the object to be inspected and the illumination unit around an axis AXperpendicular to the surface under inspectionand changing illumination conditions of the illumination light, a light reception unitreceiving scattered light emitted from the surface under inspection when illuminated with illumination light in each illumination condition, to capture images thereof, and a combining unitcombining images captured by the light reception unit to generate a combined image.