Autofocus method and autofocus device

The invention is based on an autofocus method in which light from a light source (12) is focused at a measurement light focus (52) in a sample (6) and is reflected from there and the reflected light is guided through an optical system (22) in two light paths (48, 50) onto at least two detector elements (72, 74). In order to achieve fast and accurate automatic focusing on the sample, it is proposed that the measurement light focus (52) is moved in layers of the sample (6) which reflect light to different extents, and the detector elements (72, 74) are arranged in such a way that, in this case, profiles of a radiation property registered by the detector elements (72, 74) are different and a focus position is set in a manner dependent on the profiles.