JPH09101235A - Optical characteristics measuring apparatus - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To obtain an optical characteristics measuring apparatus in which the morphologically abnormal knowledge of microscope can be combined directly with the abnormal knowledge of the optical characteristics of pixel by observing the pixel, corresponding to the optical measurement data of each pixel on a display screen or an image pickup screen, morphologically through a microscope. SOLUTION: A preset scanning region on a sample is scanned two- dimensionally by means of a laser beam and a photoelectric signal is subjected to A/D conversion before transferring a scanning image data to a computer. The computer extracts the pixel unit data from the image data thus transferred and writes once or updates a pixel data list before the extracted data is processed statistically to display a histogram on a screen. When an abnormal data is found in the display of one-dimensional or two-dimensional histogram, that region is designated and the X, Y coordinates of each designated pixel group are transferred to a motor controller. Subsequently, the stage position is reproduced sequentially and a switching is made to the optical path of microscope before observing the pixel pattern. Since the abnormal photometric value can be compared with the morphologic abnormality of pixel pattern, detection efficiency and accuracy can be enhanced.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a device for measuring an optical characteristic of a pixel group provided in an image capturing device or an image display device.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In the field of cell measurement in medicine and biology, a cell population of a diseased tissue such as cancer is used as a sample, and cells constituting the tissue are biochemically fluorescently labeled, and then several thousand to A device for measuring the fluorescence of tens of thousands of cells is used.

Such a device is a cytometer.
ter: Cell counter), which is a statistical cytometer because it statistically evaluates the state of diseased tissue such as cancer tumor based on the data of thousands to tens of thousands of cells that make up the tissue. It is called.

In contrast to the conventional cytodiagnosis method for detecting abnormal cells by a microscopic microscope, the statistical cytometer performs a large amount of cell measurement and data processing by a computer,
The measured data is numerical data obtained by statistical calculation, and has a characteristic that it serves as an objective index indicating the biological malignancy of cancer and tumor and thus the patient's medical condition.

Conventionally, as a statistical cytometer, a flow cytometer has been used in which a cell suspension obtained by isolating cells from a tissue sample is jetted into a laser beam as a jet water flow, but in recent years, a cell population on a slide glass has been used. A laser scanning cytometer has been developed which scans a laser with a laser.

A laser scanning cytometer scans a cell population on a slide glass over a wide range (about 10 mm square) with a laser, and performs fluorescence photometry on several thousand to tens of thousands of cells to measure the amount of intracellular components such as DNA. Can be measured.

Conventional microscopic observation was suitable for capturing morphological features, but it was not possible to quantitatively measure the brightness of cells. The laser scanning cytometer can quantitatively measure the brightness of individual cells belonging to the cell population on the slide glass. In addition, since the coordinate position of each cell can be called at the time of photometry, it can be used together with morphological observation with a microscope.

On the other hand, in the industrial field, like a liquid crystal panel display or a CCD image pickup device, there are several hundreds of thousands of display pixels or light receiving pixels on the display surface or the image pickup surface, and the amount of light emission per pixel is large. There is also a device for which the quantitativeness of the received light amount is required.

However, conventionally, the inspection in these devices depends on the detection of the morphological abnormality by the microscopic inspection of the pixel pattern or the alignment inspection pattern provided in the manufacturing process like the semiconductor integrated circuit such as IC and LSI. The measurement of the optical characteristics of each display pixel or the light receiving pixel requires a huge amount of time in the conventional method using a microscopic photometric device, and is therefore rarely performed except for basic research applications.

The optical characteristics of the image display device or the image photographing device are actually evaluated by the reproduced image of the display image or the photographed image. Therefore, the morphological abnormality detection of the pixel pattern and alignment pattern obtained by microscopic observation is not directly linked to the abnormality finding of the optical characteristics obtained by the image evaluation, and it is necessary to evaluate the relationship by accumulating experience. It was

That is, a liquid crystal panel display or CCD
The correspondence between the microscopic observation result of the intermediate process in the manufacturing process of the image pickup device and the image evaluation result of the finished product is weak, which is one of the factors that the good product rate cannot be increased in the final assembling stage. That is, in the evaluation of an image composed of a group of hundreds of thousands of pixels, although the brightness of the image is viewed from a bird's-eye view, it is not possible to measure the brightness of each pixel. , It can be said to be an essential problem.

Conventionally, a microphotometer is used as a device for measuring the optical characteristics of each pixel, but it takes time because each pixel is manually positioned and measured. It is only possible to sample and measure tens to hundreds of pixels per screen, which is not used in the production line for liquid crystal panel displays, CCD image pickup devices and the like.

[0013]

As described above, in the conventional microscope observation, the form of the pixel pattern can be observed, but it is formed on the display surface or the image surface of the observation image display device or the image capturing device. It is not possible to measure optical characteristics such as brightness and light receiving sensitivity of each of several hundreds of thousands of pixels.

Further, although the optical evaluation of the display image of the pixel display device or the image photographing device or the reproduced image of the photographed image is effective to some extent for confirming the final quality, the correspondence between the image evaluation data and the individual pixel data. It is difficult to attach. for that reason,
It is difficult to feed back the image evaluation data to the manufacturing process in order to repair defective products or set conditions for the manufacturing process.

In order to solve the above problems, the present invention measures the optical characteristics of each pixel formed on the display surface or the shooting surface of a pixel display device or an image shooting device,
Moreover, it is an object of the present invention to provide an optical characteristic measuring device capable of observing a morphology of pixels corresponding to measurement data with a microscope.

[0016]

In order to achieve the above object, the present invention constitutes an optical characteristic measuring device by the following means. According to a first aspect of the invention, in a device for measuring the optical characteristics of a pixel group provided in an image capturing device or an image display device, a scanning means for two-dimensionally scanning the pixel group with an optical beam, and the scanning means. Photoelectric conversion means for detecting the light intensity of reflected light or transmitted light of the pixel group of the optical beam scanned by the means and converting it into an electric signal, and converting the electric signal from the photoelectric conversion means into digital data And an analog / digital conversion means for storing the data, a storage means for storing the digital data converted by the analog / digital conversion means, and a data processing means for processing the data stored in the storage means. The data processing means includes an area specifying processing function for specifying one pixel area from the data and a pixel area specified by this processing function. Has a region defining processing function of defining a neighboring region, and a characteristic calculation processing function for calculating the optical properties of the pixels identified using the data in the area combined with the pixel region and the neighboring region around.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, in an apparatus for measuring an optical characteristic of a pixel group provided in an image capturing device or an image display device, the image is projected onto the display surface of the image display device and the display surface is displayed. Photoelectric conversion means for detecting the light intensity from the light and converting it into an electric signal, scanning means for two-dimensionally scanning the display surface of the image display device onto which the photoelectric conversion means is projected, and scanning by this scanning means And an analog / digital conversion means for converting the electric signal from the photoelectric conversion means into digital data,
A storage unit for storing the digital data converted by the digital conversion unit; and a data processing unit for receiving the data stored in the storage unit and processing the data.
The data processing means has an area specifying processing function for specifying one pixel area from data, an area specifying processing function for specifying a neighborhood area around the pixel area specified by this processing function, the pixel area and the neighborhood. And a characteristic calculation processing function for calculating the optical characteristic of the pixel specified by using the data in the area combined with the area.

The invention corresponding to claim 3 is the above claim 1.
Alternatively, the data processing means of the invention according to claim 2 performs the process of estimating the background level by using the data around the neighboring region defined by the region defining processing function.

Therefore, in the optical characteristic measuring device having the above-mentioned structure, the optical characteristic of each pixel formed on the display image or the photographing surface of the image display device or the image photographing device is measured. Moreover, the morphological observation of the pixel corresponding to each measurement data can be performed with a microscope. As a result, it becomes possible to directly connect the morphological abnormality finding of the pixel pattern and the alignment pattern obtained by the microscopic observation of the liquid crystal panel display, the CCD image pickup device and the like and the abnormal finding of the optical characteristic of each pixel.

[0020]

BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 shows a configuration example of a mechanical / optical system showing a first embodiment of an optical characteristic measuring apparatus according to the present invention.

In FIG. 1, a laser beam emitted from a laser 1 is appropriately focused by a spot projection lens 18, then reflected by a half mirror 2 and a galvano mirror 3 which rotates about a rotation axis orthogonal to the plane of the drawing. The light is reflected, an image is formed on the objective image plane by the pupil projection lens 4, and the sheet is vertically scanned.

The laser beam that has passed through this objective image plane is reflected by the optical path switching mirror 5, then enters the objective lens 6, and the laser spot imaged on the sample 7 mounted on the scanning stage 17 is the sample. Surface is scanned in the left-right direction of the paper. Further, by scanning the laser in the left-right direction by the optical deflecting means by the galvano mirror 3, the scanning stage 17 is moved in the direction orthogonal to the paper surface, so that the pixel group on the sample surface is two-dimensionally scanned by the laser spot. it can.

The reflected light from the sample travels backward in the optical path, passes through the objective lens 6, the optical path switching mirror 5, the pupil projection lens 4, the galvano mirror 3, the half mirror 2 and the reflected light filter 13, and is a condenser lens. 14 photomultiplier tube (PMT
1) Collected on the light receiving surface of 15.

On the other hand, the transmitted light that has passed through the sample 7 is collected by the condenser lens 8 and reflected by the beam splitter 9, then passes through the transmitted light filter 10 and enters the light receiving surface of the photodiode (PD) 11.

With the above configuration, it is possible to two-dimensionally scan the laser spot on the sample and detect the transmitted and reflected light from the sample. Here, the spot size of the laser spot projected on the sample surface is determined by the focal lengths of the objective lens 6, the pupil projection lens 4, and the spot projection lens 18, but the type of objective lens normally used is the resolution during microscope observation. And the working distance, the pupil projection lens is optimized according to the scanning device. Therefore, a desired spot size can be obtained by appropriately adjusting the focal length of the spot projection lens.

Further, the optical path switching mirror 5 is provided so that it can be inserted into and removed from the optical path. By removing the optical path switching mirror 5 from the optical path, the sample image can be observed under the microscope observing optical system 16.
Can be used as an ordinary microscope by using the illumination by the transmission illumination optical system 12 and the coaxial epi-illumination optical system 19, and the transmission image and the reflection image of the sample can be observed by a microscope with a naked eye, a television camera or Micrographs can be taken with a photographic device. Even in this case, fluorescence microscope observation and polarization microscope observation are possible by appropriately combining microscope accessories. Further, the optical path switching mirror 5 may be replaced with an optical path splitting element such as a beam splitter so that the scanning and photometric optical paths and the microscope optical path can be used at the same time.

In the configuration example shown in FIG. 1, the case where the reflected light is detected is shown, but it can be said that the fluorescence can be detected by using the dichroic mirror instead of the half mirror 2 and the barrier filter instead of the reflected light filter 13. There is no end. Also, the laser is a linearly polarized laser,
By using a polarization beam splitter instead of the half mirror 2 and a polarization analyzer instead of the reflected light filter 13 and the transmitted light filter 10, the reflected light of the sample,
It is also possible to detect the polarization characteristics of transmitted light. It is known that the polarization characteristics are particularly effective in evaluating the characteristics of liquid crystal panel displays.

FIG. 2 shows, as a second embodiment of the optical characteristic measuring apparatus according to the present invention, an image display device which produces a luminance, such as a liquid crystal panel display with backlight illumination, is measured in a light emitting state (image display state). FIG. 1 shows an example of the configuration in this case, and the same parts as those in FIG.

In FIG. 2, the scanning stage 17
The specimen 7 placed on top is a liquid crystal panel display. As the liquid crystal panel display, one in which a backlight illumination 21 is incorporated is used. In this case, a backlight for measurement may be built in the scanning stage 17 in advance and only the liquid crystal panel may be mounted as a sample.

Further, in the second embodiment, since the light emission of the sample 7 is detected, the laser 1, the spot projection lens 18 and the half mirror 2 shown in FIG. 1 are not necessary, and the condenser lens 8 and the beam splitter 9 are not necessary. Also, the transmitted light filter 10, the photodiode (PD) 11 and the transmitted illumination light source 12 are unnecessary.

In this case, if the laser 1, the spot projection lens 18 and the half mirror 2 are left as they are and only the half mirror 2 is constructed so that it can be inserted into and removed from the photometric path, the device also serves as the device shown in FIG. be able to.

On the other hand, the optical path to the photomultiplier tube 15 is shown in FIG.
1, a detector projection lens 22 and a detector diaphragm 23 are provided, and a photometric filter 20 is provided instead of the reflected light filter 13 of FIG.

The detector projection lens 22 is used instead of the condenser lens 14 of FIG.
Is only for collecting the reflected detection light, while the detector projection lens 22 has a function of projecting the light receiving surface of the photomultiplier tube 15 onto the sample surface so as to have an appropriate size. is there.

The shape of the detector diaphragm 23 is generally circular or regular polygonal as a variable aperture diaphragm. However, in order to improve the scanning efficiency, it may be a rectangular aperture or the specimen 7.
The detector diaphragm 23 may be exchangeable so that the detector diaphragm shape can be set in accordance with the sample pixel shape or the pixel array pattern such as a shape similar to the above pixel shape.

The projection size of the light receiving surface projected on the sample surface may be adjusted by changing the focal length of the detector projection lens 22 without providing the detector diaphragm 23.

In the measuring device having such a structure, the detector diaphragm 23 includes the detector projection lens 22, the pupil projection lens 4,
The image is reduced and projected onto the sample 7 by the objective lens 6 and scanned by the galvanomirror 3 in the left-right direction on the paper surface. Further, the projection image of the detector diaphragm 23 is scanned in the left-right direction by the optical polarization means by the galvanometer mirror 3, and at the same time, the scanning stage 17 is moved in the direction orthogonal to the paper surface.
The pixel group on the sample surface can be two-dimensionally scanned by the projected image of the detector.

Also here, the optical path switching mirror 5 is used as in FIG.
Is provided so that it can be inserted into and removed from the optical path, and by removing it from the optical path, the sample image can be guided to the microscope observation optical system 16, and the display surface of the image display device can be observed by the microscope or the coaxial incident illumination optical system 19. It goes without saying that the reflection image can be observed with a microscope by using the illumination.

FIG. 3 shows a third embodiment of the optical characteristic measuring apparatus according to the present invention, which is an example of the configuration in which an image pickup device such as a CCD image pickup device is measured in a light receiving state (image pickup state). The same parts as those in FIG.

In FIG. 3, the scanning stage 17
Similar to FIG. 1, the sample 7 placed on the upper surface is a CCD image pickup device and is configured so that a laser spot scans the light receiving surface. A photoelectric conversion signal from a CCD image pickup device which is a sample is output from an external photoelectric output circuit 27 as shown in the figure to an external input terminal of an electric system described later.

Further, since the photoelectric conversion function of the CCD image pickup device as the sample is used for photoelectric detection, the half mirror 2, the reflected light filter 13, the condenser lens 14 and the photomultiplier tube 15 shown in FIG. 1 are unnecessary. .

However, since it can be used as it is, it can be used as it is, and the half mirror 2 of FIG. 1 may be configured to be switchable with the mirror 26 to facilitate switching between FIG. 1 and FIG. That is, one device can be used as shown in FIGS. 1, 2 and 3 so that it can be used for each of the applications shown in FIGS.
It is also possible to configure each of the above configurations so that they can be switched to each other.

According to the measuring apparatus having such a configuration, the laser spot is two-dimensionally scanned on the sample, and the CCD, which is the sample, is scanned.
It is possible to detect a photoelectric signal from the image sensor.
Here as well, as in FIGS. 1 and 2, the optical path switching mirror 5 is
It is provided so that it can be inserted and removed from the optical path, and by removing it from the optical path, the sample image can be guided to the microscope observation optical system 16, and the display surface of the image display device can be observed by the microscope or illuminated by the coaxial incident illumination optical system 19. Needless to say, it is possible to observe a reflection image with a microscope.

Next, an example of the configuration and operation of the electrical system of the optical characteristic measuring apparatus according to the present invention will be described with reference to FIG. 4, photoelectric signals detected by the photomultiplier tube (PMT) and the photodiode (PD) shown in FIG. 1 are processed by a signal processing system provided for each detection signal (called a channel), and The data is transferred to and stored in the memory circuit for each channel provided on the memory board on the expansion slot inside.

Further, an external input terminal capable of switching with the photodiode (PD) signal is provided, and the photoelectric signal output circuit 27 of FIG. 3 can be connected. Each photoelectric signal is amplified by a head amplifier, then noise is removed by an analog integrator, and the analog-digital converter (A /
After being converted to digital data in D), it is transferred to a memory board mounted in the computer by a digital signal processor (DSP). The data transferred to the memory board is accessed by the CPU of the computer, and the scan image data is processed.

The expansion slot of the computer has an IEEE
GPIB (General Purpose Interf) based on E-488 standard
ace bus) A card for controlling is provided, and a GPIB interface control circuit (GPIB I / F) on the device side
The CPU (Central Processing Unit) on the device side and the computer communicate with each other via the.

On the CPU bus (CPU Bus) on the apparatus side, a motor controller for controlling the driving of two stepping motors respectively driving the X-axis and the Y-axis of the scanning stage, and a waveform generation for generating a waveform for driving the galvanometer mirror. Circuit, each photomultiplier tube (PMT1,
Offset of photoelectric signal detected by digital-analog converter (D / A) and photomultiplier tube (PMT) and photodiode (PD) which generate applied voltage to cathode of 2 and 3) and control multiplication factor A digital-to-analog converter (D / A) that produces a regulated voltage is coupled.

With the above electrical system configuration, the operation of the apparatus such as scanning and signal processing can be comprehensively controlled by the GPIB control command from the computer. Next, the operation of the optical characteristic measuring device configured as described above will be described.

While scanning the preset scanning area on the sample two-dimensionally, the photoelectric signal is digitized and the scanned image data is transferred to the memory board on the computer. Scanned image data is read by a computer, a pixel is detected, the data value of a pixel unit is extracted, and a pixel data list is created. The measurement ends when the list of pixel data in the scan area is completed.

The pixel data list obtained as a result of the measurement is
Saved as a data file, display histogram, etc.
It is displayed on the computer screen while undergoing statistical processing.

Here, the graphical
A combination of user interface (GUI) software and mouse operation allows area setting on the histogram display screen.

When an abnormal data group is found in the one-dimensional or two-dimensional histogram display as shown in FIGS. 6A and 6B, the abnormal data area is designated on the histogram and falls within the area. It is possible to call the pixel data to be reproduced, transfer the X and Y coordinate data stored for each pixel to the motor controller, and successively reproduce the coordinate position of the stage.

Here, by switching the device to the microscope optical path and performing microscope observation, it is possible to perform microscopic observation of a pixel showing abnormal data, and it is possible to compare an abnormal photometric value with a morphological abnormality of a pixel pattern. it can.

FIG. 5 is a flow chart showing the above user operation, device operation, and computer processing work. In addition, since there is a correspondence between the microscope coordinates and the operation photometric coordinates, after the operation photometry, first the pixel pattern is screened by the microscope observation to find an abnormal pixel pattern, and then the pixel data near the coordinate position is searched from the pixel data list. It can also be used to search and associate with abnormal data.

Next, a method of extracting pixel data from a scanned image will be described with reference to FIGS. FIG. 7 is a schematic diagram of a scan image of a typical pixel pattern, FIG. 8 is a one-dimensional display of the scan waveform, and FIG. 9 is an enlarged view of the waveform of part A of FIG. It is a thing. Although an image and a scanning waveform are shown for the sake of explanation, the image data is stored as digital data on the memory board, the individual data is accessible to the computer, and the actual processing is programmed to be performed by the computer. ing.

In the pixel group of FIG. 7, the "pixel A" located at the center of the upper stage will be described. The scanning waveform is as shown in FIG. 8 when pixels on both sides are included. An enlarged view of part A is shown in FIG. Here, a portion that exceeds a preset "threshold value" is detected, and a contour is extracted as a pixel detection area. On the other hand, a region in which a predetermined fixed amount of “neighborhood” equivalent portion is added to the outside is a pixel recognition region, and optical characteristic values other than the background level of each pixel are the scan image in the pixel recognition region. Calculated based on the data. The background level is calculated using the scan image data located outside the pixel recognition area by a preset “background interval”.

Here, the "neighborhood" amount is for complementing the portion corresponding to the "skirt" of the pixel which does not exceed the threshold value, and the blur amount of the scanning image due to the laser spot size and the desired photometry. Set in consideration of accuracy. Also, the laser spot size should be set as large as possible in order to improve the scanning speed, but it should be small enough to recognize the valley (background) of the gap between pixels, and A fraction of the size of the gap is suitable.

This spot size is about an order of magnitude larger than the resolution normally obtained by microscopic observation, and is realized by making a laser beam sufficiently thinner than the aperture of the objective lens. Specifically, the focal length of the spot projection lens 18 and the optical path length from the laser 1 to the galvano mirror 3 in FIG. 1 are adjusted, or a beam converter for reducing the beam diameter is inserted in place of the spot projection lens 18. It will be realized. Increasing the laser spot size on the sample surface also increases the depth of focus of the laser beam, and has the effect of preventing deterioration of photometric accuracy due to defocus that occurs during scanning of the sample due to stage movement.

The data obtained for each pixel is: area: number of scan image data in pixel confirmation area brightness: sum of scan image data in pixel confirmation area peak value: maximum value of scan image data in pixel confirmation area Coordinate position: Coordinate position of scanned image data of peak value Background correction value: Representative value of background correction location data.

The background correction may be determined as needed when the pixel data is statistically analyzed, a histogram is displayed, or the like. The background correction calculation may be performed by subtracting the value obtained by multiplying the background correction value and the area from the brightness and subtracting the background correction value from the peak value.

Although the morphological parameters such as the outer peripheral length and the diameter can also be calculated, the morphological resolution of the scanned image is higher than that of the microscope because the laser spot is intentionally enlarged as described above. Inferior That is, it is necessary to properly use laser scanning for obtaining a photometric value, and to take a normal microscope image into a video device in a microscope optical path and perform image processing when morphological information is important. As described above with reference to FIGS. 1 to 3, the microscope can be easily used together.

Further, in FIG. 1, a pinhole opening smaller than the image of the spot formed on this surface is inserted into a surface of the detection light beam incident on the detector 15 which is less prone to the laser spot scanning on the sample surface. If confocal detection is performed, the resolution of the scan image can be improved, the resolution of the scan image can be improved, and the scan image can also be used for extracting morphological information.

In the above-mentioned embodiment, “neighborhood” is added to the appearance of the pixel detection area exceeding the threshold value, but it is adapted to the pixel shape on the assumption that the pixel shape is constant in advance, A "nearby" pattern, which is slightly larger than the scanned image of pixels, may be set in advance so as to be fitted into the scanned image of pixels. This is shown in FIG.

In the optical characteristic measuring apparatus configured as described above, the pixel group on the image capturing apparatus or the image display apparatus is two-dimensionally scanned with the optical beam, and each pixel and its vicinity are scanned from the scanned image. The area is extracted and the optical characteristics of each pixel forming the pixel group are measured.
Therefore, the measured data can be statistically processed and displayed such as a histogram display, and the coordinate data of the pixel group belonging to the abnormal data group in the histogram can be called to reproduce the coordinate position of the sample on the microscope stage. This allows the microscopic observation of the pixels that have presented the abnormal data.

The features of the present invention are as follows. (1) In the data processing means, at least one of the size and pattern of the neighboring area defined around the pixel can be defined in advance. (2) The spot size of the beam for scanning the image capturing or display device or the projection size of the photoelectric conversion means is set to be a fraction to one tenth of the gap (gap width) of pixels on the image display or the capturing device. Can be set to the size of. (3) Data obtained as a result of the measurement is created as a pixel data list of brightness, area, coordinate position, estimated background level, etc., for each pixel on the image capturing or display device, and a number is prepared for each image capturing or display device. Pixel data of hundreds to hundreds of thousands of pixels can be statistically calculated and displayed by a statistical display means such as a histogram display. (4) In (3) above, when the pixel data of the pixel data list is statistically calculated and displayed by a statistical display means such as a histogram display, it is selected whether or not the background level is corrected using the estimated background level. Is possible. (5) In (3) or (4) above, an area on the screen displayed in the histogram can be set, and a pixel data group displayed in the histogram can be extracted in this area. (6) The optical path for scanning photometry and the optical path for microscope observation can be used simultaneously or selectively by the optical path dividing means or the optical path switching means. (7) In (6) above, the sample position coordinates corresponding to the scan coordinate position of the sample can be reproduced in the microscope observation optical path. (8) In (6) above, the position coordinates set in the microscope observation optical path are read by the computer and can be associated with the scanning coordinate position.

[0065]

According to the optical characteristic measuring apparatus of the present invention described above, the optical characteristic of each pixel formed on the display image or the photographing surface of the image display apparatus or the image photographing apparatus is measured, and The morphological observation of the pixels corresponding to each measurement data by a microscope can be performed.

As a result, the liquid crystal panel display and C
It is possible to directly connect the morphological abnormality finding of the pixel pattern and the alignment pattern obtained by microscopic observation of the CD image pickup device and the optical characteristic abnormality finding of each pixel.
In other words, it is possible to correlate the microscope observation result of the intermediate process in the manufacturing process of the liquid crystal panel display and the CCD image pickup device with the measurement result of the optical property of the finished product, and the defect in the finished product is appropriately fed back to the intermediate step of the manufacturing process. can do. This can improve the manufacturing yield (good quality) of the liquid crystal panel display, the CCD image pickup device, and the like.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram showing a first embodiment of an optical characteristic measuring apparatus according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a configuration diagram showing a second embodiment of an optical characteristic measuring apparatus according to the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a configuration diagram showing a third embodiment of the optical characteristic measuring apparatus according to the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a block circuit diagram showing a configuration example of an electric system of the optical characteristic measuring apparatus according to the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing a flow of work by computer processing in the optical characteristic measuring apparatus.

FIG. 6 is a diagram showing a display form when an abnormal data group exists in a one-dimensional or two-dimensional histogram display.

FIG. 7 is a schematic diagram of a scanned image of a typical pixel pattern.

FIG. 8 is a diagram in which operation waveforms of the pixel pattern of FIG. 7 are displayed one-dimensionally.

9 is an enlarged view showing a waveform of a portion A in FIG.

FIG. 10 is a diagram showing a situation in which a scan image and a neighboring pattern are superimposed.

[Explanation of symbols]

1 ... Laser, 2 ... Half mirror, 3 ... Galvano mirror, 4 ... Pupil projection lens, 5 ... Optical path switching mirror, 6
...... Microscope objective lens, 7 ...... Sample, 8 ...... Condenser lens, 9 ...... Beam splitter, 10 ...... Transmission light filter, 11 ...... Photodiode, 12 ...... Transmission illumination light source, 13 ...... Reflected light filter, 14 ... Focusing lens, 15 ... Photomultiplier tube, 16 ... Microscope observation optical system, 17 ... Scanning stage, 18 ... Spot projection lens, 19 ... Coaxial epi-illumination, 20 ... Photometric filter, 21 ...... Backlight illumination, 22 ...... Detector projection lens, 23 ...... Detector diaphragm, 26 ...... Mirror, 27 ...
… Photoelectric signal output circuit.

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. A device for measuring optical characteristics of a pixel group provided in an image capturing device or an image display device, comprising: scanning means for two-dimensionally scanning the pixel group with an optical beam; and scanning by the scanning means. Photoelectric conversion means for detecting the light intensity of reflected light or transmitted light of the optical beam by the pixel group, and an analog / digital converter for converting the electric signal from the photoelectric conversion means into digital data The data processing means includes a conversion means, a storage means for storing the digital data converted by the analog / digital conversion means, and a data processing means for receiving the data stored in the storage means and processing the data. , The area specifying processing function to specify one pixel area from the data, and the vicinity of the pixel area specified by this processing function. An area defining processing function for defining an area, and a characteristic calculating processing function for calculating an optical characteristic of a pixel specified by using data in the area obtained by combining the pixel area and the neighboring area. Optical characteristic measuring device. 2. An apparatus for measuring an optical characteristic of a pixel group provided in an image capturing device or an image display device, wherein the light intensity projected from the display surface of the image display device and detected from the display surface is detected. From a photoelectric conversion means for converting into an electric signal, a scanning means for two-dimensionally scanning the display surface of the image display device on which the photoelectric conversion means is projected, and the photoelectric conversion means when scanned by the scanning means. Analog / digital conversion means for converting the electric signal of the above into digital data, storage means for storing the digital data converted by this analog / digital conversion means, and data processing by taking in the data stored in this storage means A data processing unit, wherein the data processing unit has an area specifying processing function for specifying one pixel area from the data, and A region defining processing function that defines a neighborhood region around the identified pixel region, and a characteristic that calculates optical characteristics of the identified pixel using data in a region obtained by combining the pixel region and the neighborhood region. An optical characteristic measuring device having a calculation processing function. 3. The data processing unit performs a process of estimating a background level by using data around a neighboring region defined by a region defining processing function. Optical characteristic measuring device.