Patent ID: 8094290

Claim:
An illumination optical apparatus for illuminating a pattern arranged on an irradiated plane with a plurality of pulses of light, the illumination optical apparatus comprising: an optical device arranged upstream from the irradiated plane and including a plurality of optical elements, each of which spatially modulates the pulses of light in accordance with incident positions of the pulses of light; and an illumination control system which controls the plurality of optical elements, whenever at least one pulse of light is emitted, in a manner such that the optical elements spatially modulate the plurality of pulses of light differently from one another; and a relay optical system arranged downstream from the optical device and changing distribution of angles of incident light to distribution of positions of exit light, wherein the relay optical system guides the plurality of pulses of light spatially modulated by the optical elements to a predetermined plane, which is an illumination pupil plane of the illumination optical system or a plane optically conjugated with the illumination pupil plane.