A quality evaluation method includes an acquisition step of acquiring spectral data related to transmitted light or diffusely reflected light from a cell mass by irradiating the cell mass with measurement light including near-infrared light, and an evaluation step of evaluating quality of the cell mass, based on the spectral data of the cell mass acquired in the acquisition step.

An imaging apparatus includes an imager with an imaging optical system to having an object-side hypercentric property, an illuminator with a plurality of illumination optical systems having mutually different exit pupil positions and a mover for relatively moving these with respect to a well plate. Imaging is performed simultaneously with stroboscopic illumination when the imager is located at a predetermined imaging position, and illumination optical systems are switched according to the imaging position.

Defects from a hot scan can be saved, such as on persistent storage, random access memory, or a split database. The persistent storage can be patch-based virtual inspector virtual analyzer (VIVA) or local storage. Repeater defect detection jobs can determined and the wafer can be inspected based on the repeater defect detection jobs. Repeater defects can be analyzed and corresponding defect records to the repeater defects can be read from the persistent storage. These results may be returned to the high level defect detection controller.

The present specification discloses a multi-view X-ray inspection system having, in one of several embodiments, a three-view configuration with three X-ray sources. Each X-ray source rotates and is configured to emit a rotating X-ray pencil beam and at least two detector arrays, where each detector array has multiple non-pixellated detectors such that at least a portion of the non-pixellated detectors are oriented toward both the two X-ray sources.

A multi-depth confocal imaging system includes at least one light source configured to provide excitation beams and an objective lens. The excitation beams are focused into a sample at a first plurality of focus depths along an excitation direction through the objective lens. An image sensor receives emissions from the sample via the objective lens, wherein the emissions define foci relative to the image sensor at a second plurality of focus depths.

Systems, apparatus, and related methods for evaluating biological sample integrity are disclosed herein. An example method includes scanning a sample container having a sample disposed therein to generate signal data including a first signal portion and a second signal portion. The example method includes detecting if the sample container includes a label attached to a surface of the sample container based on the second signal portion. If the sample container includes a label, the example method includes applying an adjustment factor to the second signal portion to create adjusted signal data. The example method includes determining a property of the sample based on one or more of the first signal portion or the adjusted signal data.

A system and a method for sensing an object using two-stage photo-acoustic excitation are provided herein. The method may include: scanning the object at a first resolution by alternately and repeatedly photo-acoustically exciting and sensing each of multiple first regions on the object to yield multiple first outputs; determining, based on the multiple first outputs, at least one first region of the multiple first regions that includes at least one zone and a specific depth of the at least one zone below a surface of the object; scanning the first region that includes the at least one zone at a second resolution by alternately and repeatedly photo-acoustically exciting and sensing each of multiple second regions in the at least one first region thereof to yield multiple second outputs; and determining, based on at least one of the multiple second outputs, specified parameters of the at least one zone.

A system for improving drill bit performance, comprising processors and memory storing instructions to obtain a wear report for a drill bit, wherein the wear report includes wear characteristics of the drill bit and drill operating parameters under which the drill bit was used; compare the wear characteristics of the drill bit to a threshold for acceptable drill bit wear; and adjust drill operating parameters based on the wear characteristics of the drill bit. The instructions to obtain the wear report for the drill bit include instructions to analyze images of the drill bit to identify wear characteristics; identify wear patterns based on the wear characteristics of the drill bit; identify probable drilling conditions based on the wear patterns; and generate the wear report for the drill bit based on the images of the drill bit, the wear characteristics of the drill bit, and the probable drilling conditions.

A semiconductor device inspection apparatus includes: a light sensor that detects light from a semiconductor device as a DUT to which an electric signal has been input; an optical system that guides light from the semiconductor device to the light sensor; and a control device electrically connected to the light sensor. The control device includes: a data reading unit that reads mask data indicating a mask layout of the semiconductor device; a search unit that searches for a position of a transistor in the semiconductor device on the basis of polygon data of a gate layer of the semiconductor device included in the mask data; a setting unit that sets the searched position of the transistor as an optical measurement target position; and a measurement unit that performs optical measurement for the set optical measurement target position to acquire a measurement result.

According to various embodiments of the present invention, an optical capture system is provided. In one embodiment, a micro-scale optical capturing system is provided with low divergence (approximately 1°) of the incident light and low acceptance angle (<8°) of the captured light. According to embodiments, a micro-scale optical capturing system is provided with a large number of collimated high-power white LEDs as light sources, between 60 and 100 units, for example, and may be positioned at distances of about 650 mm from the sample. In one embodiment, a digital camera using 50 mm focal objective with a 25 mm length extension tube captures images of the sample. This provides a working distance of approximately 100 mm and at the same time maintains ×0.5 magnification for microscale captures, with an image size of 4×4 microns per pixel.