Patent ID: 8502961

Claim:
An exposure method of illuminating a mask, on which a pattern is formed, using an illumination optical system, and projecting an image of a pattern of the illuminated mask onto a substrate through a projection optical system, the method comprising: an obtaining step of obtaining data of an amount of change in an environment condition in the projection optical system and data of at least one of parameters, including a numerical aperture and effective light source of the illumination optical system, a numerical aperture of the projection optical system, and a size and pitch of the pattern; a calculation step of calculating a correction amount of a correction unit which corrects a change in imaging characteristics of the projection optical system based on a first coefficient defining a relationship between the amount of change in the environment condition and an amount of change in imaging characteristics of the projection optical system and a second coefficient defining a relationship between the amount of change in imaging characteristics of the projection optical system and the correction amount of the correction unit; and a correction step of making the correction unit operate in accordance with the correction amount calculated in the calculation step, wherein values of the first coefficient and the second coefficient are determined by a value of at least one of the parameters, wherein the calculation step includes: a first calculation step of calculating an amount of change in imaging characteristics of the projection optical system using the amount of change in the environment condition and the first coefficient, and a second calculation step of calculating a correction amount of the correction unit using the amount of change in the imaging characteristics calculated in the first calculation step, and the second coefficient.