Systems and methods for inspection of a specimen

A system configured to inspect a specimen, comprising:

• an illumination subsystem configured to illuminate the specimen by scanning a spot across the specimen;
• an objective configured to collect light specularly reflected from the spot scanned across the specimen, wherein a numerical aperture of the objective is greater than about 0.05;
• a non-imaging detector configured to detect the light collected by the objective and to generate amplified output signals responsive to the detected light, wherein the numerical aperture of the objective is not coupled to a pixel size of the non-imaging detector;
• and
• a processor configured to generate images of the specimen using the amplified output signals and to detect defects on the specimen using the images.

A method for inspecting a specimen, comprising:

• illuminating the specimen by scanning a spot across the specimen;
• generating non-image output signals responsive to light specularly reflected from the spot scanned across the specimen using a non-imaging detection subsystem, wherein the non-imaging detection subsystem comprises an objective and a detector, and wherein a numerical aperture of the objective is not coupled to a pixel size of the detector;
• generating images of the specimen using the non-image output signals;
• and
• detecting defects on the specimen using the images.