Patent ID: 7826035

Claim:
A lithographic apparatus, comprising: an illumination system configured to produce a beam of radiation; an array of individually controllable elements configured to pattern the beam; and a projection system configured to project the patterned beam onto a target portion of a substrate, wherein each element in the array of individually controllable elements comprises a stack of top, middle, and bottom dielectric layers, at least the middle dielectric layer comprising a solid state electro-optical material that is plane polarized in an extraordinary axis, wherein the middle dielectric layer of each element is configured to receive a respective control signal that has a first state and a second state, wherein a portion of incident radiation having a first polarization state that is reflected by each element when the respective control signal is in the first and second states is different, and wherein a portion of incident radiation having a second polarization state that is reflected by each element is substantially the same when the respective control signal is in the first and second states.