Using the oxygen dimer (O4 information measured by multi-axis differential optical absorption spectroscopy (MAX-DOAS)), an inversion method of vertical profile of aerosol extinction based on nonlinear optimal estimation algorithm is developed. At first we study how to calculate some parameters (weighting function, the covariance matrices of measurement and a priori) of the algorithm and design nonlinear iteration strategy suited to Chinese region where aerosol usually shows rapid variation and high load. Then this inversion method is verified by computer simulation combined with discussion about error source in three typical cases of low, high and elevated aerosol. After that a continuous observation is reported in the city of Hefei. The aerosol optical depth (AOD) derived from MAX-DOAS is compared with that of CE318 sun photometer and the correlation coefficient is 0.94. The total relative error of AOD is about 20%. In addition the aerosol extinction in the lowest altitude (0-0.3 km) is compared with that of visibility meter and the correlation coefficient is about 0.65. The total relative error of surface-near aerosol extinction is about 25%. Both of simulation verification and comparison experiment indicate that the inversion method can well rebuild the vertical profile of aerosol extinction in the troposphere.