Multi-column large field of view imaging platform

A measurement system comprising:

• an illumination source configured to generate one or more illumination beams;
• one or more objective lenses, wherein one or more of the objective lenses are configured as illumination objective lenses to direct illumination from the illumination source to one or more targets on a sample when implementing a recipe, wherein one or more of the objective lenses are configured as collection objective lenses, wherein each of the collection objective lenses is configured to collect a selected diffraction order of the illumination from the sample when implementing the recipe;
• a first detector configured to image the sample based on the positive first-order diffraction when implementing the recipe;
• a second detector configured to image the sample based on the negative first-order diffraction when implementing the recipe;
• one or more detectors, each configured to image the sample based on at least one of the selected diffraction orders from at least one of the collection objective lenses;
• and
• a controller communicatively coupled to the one or more detectors, the controller including one or more processors configured to execute program instructions causing the one or more processors to implement the recipe by generating one or more measurements of the one or more targets on the sample based on one or more images from the one or more detectors, wherein the one or more measurements include an overlay measurement between the first and second layers based on grey-levels associated with the at least one target in the images from the first and second detectors.