Abstract: A surface inspection system includes a beam source subsystem, a beam scanning subsystem, a workpiece movement subsystem, an optical collection and detection subsystem, and a processing subsystem. The optical collection and detection system features back collectors disposed in the back quartersphere, outside the incident plane, for collecting light scattered from the surface of the workpiece. The back collectors are disposed at a relative minimum in the portion of scattered light attributable to haze relative to the portion of scattered light attributable to defect scatter portion, or, alternatively, at a relative minimum in the Rayleigh scatter.