Patent ID: 8059257

Claim:
An exposure apparatus comprising: a movable substrate stage configured to hold a substrate; an optical system configured to project light from an original, wherein the apparatus is configured to perform an exposure of the substrate to light via liquid filled in a gap between a last surface of the optical system and the substrate; a detecting device configured to detect a droplet adhering to a surface of the substrate; and a removing device arranged on the substrate stage and configured to remove the detected droplet at a substrate recovery position away from the optical system, the detecting device including, an image-capturing unit arranged on the substrate stage and configured to capture an image of a surface of the substrate, wherein the detecting device is configured to detect the droplet based on a comparison between first image data obtained by the image capturing unit while a substrate stage that holds an unexposed substrate is moved to a position under the optical system and second image data obtained by the image capturing unit while an exposure substrate stage that holds an exposed substrate is moved to the substrate recovery position, wherein size of the droplet is determined based on information on coordinates of the wafer stage and a spatial frequency bandwidth of a lowpass filter is determined based on the size of the droplet.