116 results about "Oblique illumination" patented technology

A surface inspection of the system applies a first oblique illumination beam and may also apply a second illumination beam to illuminate a surface either sequentially or simultaneously. Radiation reflected or scattered is collected by preferably three collection channels and detected by three corresponding detector arrays, although a different number of channels and detector arrays may be used. One or both illumination beams are focused to a line on the surface to be inspected and each line is imaged onto one or more detector arrays in the up to three or more detection and collection channels. Relative motion is caused between the lines and the surface inspected in a direction perpendicular to the lines, thereby increasing throughput while retaining high resolution and sensitivity. The same detection channels may be employed by detecting scattered or reflected radiation from both illumination beams. Fourier filters may be employed to filter out diffraction at one or more different spatial frequencies.

The laser beam machine of the present invention includes: an XY stage on which to rest a workpiece with multiple machining objects arrayed on it, and which moves the workpiece in an XY direction on the basis of NC data; an image acquisition head which is provided in an image acquisition station and has oblique illumination optical system and detection optical system; and a laser machining head which is provided in a laser machining station and has a laser light source, an XY optical beam deflector for deflecting a laser beam in the XY direction on the basis of the deflection control data obtained in accordance with the image signals from each machining object that have been acquired by the image acquisition head, and an irradiation lens for admitting the above-deflected laser beam into each machining object from a substantially perpendicular direction.

The invention provides a surface inspection apparatus and a method for inspecting the surface of a sample that are capable of inspecting discriminatingly between the scratch of various configuration and the adhered foreign object that occur on the surface of a work target when the work target (for example, an insulating film on a semiconductor substrate) is subjected to polishing process such as CMP or grinding process in semiconductor manufacturing process or magnetic head manufacturing process. In the invention, the scratch and foreign object that occur on the polished or ground surface of the sample is epi-illuminated and slant-illuminated by use of approximately same light flux, the difference between the scattered light intensity emitted from the shallow scratch and that from the foreign object when epi-illumination is applied and slant illumination is applied to thereby discriminate between the shallow scratch and the foreign object, and the directionality of the scattered light when the epi-illumination is applied and the slant illumination is applied is detected to thereby discriminate between the linear scratch and the foreign object.

The present invention is characterized by the following: incident illumination and oblique illumination are performed on a scratch and a foreign material, which have been made on a surface of a polished or a ground insulating layer, with substantially the same luminous flux; and on the basis of a correlation such as a ratio of intensity of scattered light generated by the shallow scratch and the foreign material between the incident illumination and the oblique illumination, the shallow scratch is discriminated from the foreign material.

Oblique-illumination systems integrated with fluorescence microscopes and methods of using oblique illumination in fluorescence microscopy are disclosed. An oblique-illumination system is attached to a fluorescence microscope objective. The oblique-illumination system can be used to illuminate from any desired direction the surface of an object located at a fixed known offset away from a sample solution containing fluorescently tagged targets. Oblique illumination is used to illuminate features of the surface while epi-illumination is used to create fluorescent light emitted from the tagged targets. The combination of oblique illumination of the surface and epi-illumination of the targets enables capture of images of the surface features and the fluorescent targets so that the locations of the targets in the sample can be determined based on the locations of the surface features.

An apparatus of plural charged particle beams with multi-axis magnetic lens is provided to perform multi-functions of observing a specimen surface, such as high-throughput inspection and high-resolution review of interested features thereof and charge-up control for enhancing image contrast and image resolution. In the apparatus, two or more sub-columns are formed and each of the sub-columns performs one of the multi-functions. Basically the sub-columns take normal illumination to get high image resolutions, but one or more may take oblique illuminations to get high image contrasts.

A tilted illumination observation method and observation device with easy adjustment, high speed, good reproducibility and low cost is provided. A high resolution tilt image of a specimen is obtained by extracting the blurring on the scanning spot occurring during beam tilt from the image (step 6) captured by the tilted beam, and the image (step 4) captured from directly above the standard specimen; and then deconvoluting (step 11, 12) the tilted image of the target specimen (step 10) using the extracted scanning spot from the oblique beam.

A curved mirrored surface is used to collect radiation scattered by a sample surface and originating from a normal illumination beam and an oblique illumination beam. The collected radiation is focused to a detector. Scattered radiation originating from the normal and oblique illumination beams may be distinguished by employing radiation at two different wavelengths, by intentionally introducing an offset between the spots illuminated by the two beams or by switching the normal and oblique illumination beams on and off alternately. Beam position error caused by change in sample height may be corrected by detecting specular reflection of an oblique illumination beam and changing the direction of illumination in response thereto. Butterfly-shaped spatial filters may be used in conjunction with curved mirror radiation collectors to restrict detection to certain azimuthal angles.

A visual inspection apparatus includes an upper illuminator, a lower illuminator, a side illuminator, and a pair of inclined illuminators, which illuminate the peripheral edge of a wafer, and illuminates the peripheral edge of the wafer brightly. A gap is formed in the upper illuminator and illumination light of an epi-illumination portion is injected through the gap. The illumination light of the epi-illumination portion is refracted and reflected by a first mirror to illuminate the peripheral edge of the wafer. The illumination position is changed by moving second mirrors together as needed. An image of the peripheral edge is acquired in an imaging portion disposed at the same axis as the epi-illumination portion.

To detect a bridge defect between lines of a line pattern formed on a sample at pitches narrower than the wavelength of inspection light, a defect inspection device is configured to comprise: a light source which emits laser; a vertical illumination unit which applies the laser to the sample from a vertical direction via an objective lens by converting the laser into linearly polarized light by using a polarization conversion unit in a state polarized in a direction orthogonal to the longitudinal direction of the line pattern; an oblique illumination unit which applies the laser to the sample from an oblique direction; a detection optical unit including an optical filter which selectively transmits a scattered light component from the defect by converting the polarization state of the reflected/scattered light; and a signal processing unit which detects the defect on the sample by processing a detection signal.

The invention concerns an apparatus for simultaneous zero-degree and oblique illumination for an optical viewing device, in particular a stereoscopic surgical microscope, which contains a shiftable prism combination (3) for deflecting a first illumination sub-beam a long distance from the optical axis (12) of the main objective in order to obtain an oblique illumination beam (9) (oblique illumination), and for deflecting a second illumination sub-beam (8) a short distance from the optical axis (12) of the main objective in order to obtain a zero-degree illumination (8).

The present invention provides a compact liquid crystal panel detection device which can determine a defect address rapidly and accurately. The detection device comprises a first polarizing film and a second polarizing film which are arranged at the upper and lower parts of a liquid crystal panel on a workbench respectively; a backlight unit which irradiates the liquid crystal panel at a right angle with the lower surface, from the lower surface of the liquid crystal panel on the workbench, and via the second polarizing film; an inclined illumination light source which irradiates the liquid crystal panel on the workbench aslant from the lower part of the lower surface; a probe unit for applying voltages on the pixels of the liquid crystal panel on the workbench to detect the bright spots of the liquid crystal panel; a camera head for shooting the upper surface of the liquid crystal panel under the state of selectively receiving any one of the irradiation light coming from the backlight unit and the inclined irradiation light coming from the inclined illumination light source, and via the first polarizing film; and a reflecting part for guiding the inclined illumination light to the lower surface of the liquid crystal panel in a manner that the inclined illumination light is irradiated to the liquid crystal panel at an appropriate incident angle.

The present disclosure provides an imaging system, including methods and apparatus, with oblique illumination. In an exemplary method of imaging, a sample may be illuminated obliquely with excitation light generated by only a subset of a plurality of light sources mounted to an annular frame. An image may be detected, with the image formed with photoluminescence induced in the sample by the excitation light and received from a central opening of the annular frame.