Patent ID: 8390784

Claim:
A system, comprising: a catadioptric projection objective configured to image a pattern from an object field arranged in an object surface of the catadioptric projection objective onto an image field arranged in an image surface of the catadioptric projection objective comprising: a first objective part configured to image the pattern from the object surface into a first intermediate image, and having a first pupil surface; a second objective part configured to image the first intermediate image into a second intermediate image, and having a second pupil surface optically conjugate to the first pupil surface; a third objective part configured to image the second intermediate image into the image surface, and having a third pupil surface optically conjugate to the first and second pupil surface; a pupil mirror having a reflective pupil mirror surface positioned at or close to one of the first, second and third pupil surface; and a pupil mirror manipulator operatively connected to the pupil mirror and configured to vary a shape of the pupil mirror surface, and a control system including a pupil mirror control unit configured to control the pupil mirror manipulator, wherein: the pupil mirror control unit comprises or is communicatively connected to a memory storing data representing parameters of a simulation model of the catadioptric projection objective; during operation the control system derives at least one input signal for the control circuit from the data stored in the memory; the catadioptric projection objective has an aperture stop configured to adjust a diameter of an aperture as desired, where a maximum diameter of the aperture of the aperture stop is at least twice as large as a diameter D PM of the pupil mirror, and a mirror group includes a mirror pair consisting of two concave mirrors having mirror surfaces sharing a common surface of curvature provided on a common substrate, wherein one of the concave mirrors is the pupil mirror having a reflecting pupil mirror surface configured to be deformable by the pupil mirror manipulator and the other concave mirror has a rigid reflective surface separate from the pupil mirror surface.