Patent ID: 8077288

Claim:
An exposure apparatus for exposing a pattern of a reticle onto a substrate by scanning the reticle and the substrate, said exposure apparatus comprising: a projection optical system for projecting the pattern onto the substrate; and an illumination optical system for illuminating the reticle by a slit-shaped illumination region that has a longitudinal direction corresponding to a direction perpendicular to a scanning direction, said illumination optical system including an uneven-illuminance corrector, the uneven-illuminance corrector being arranged at a plane conjugate with a reticle plane and including a movable blade, a plurality of adjusting mechanisms, and a light blocking plate, wherein the movable blade and the light blocking plate define a slit width at each position in the longitudinal direction of the slit-shaped illumination region, and face each other so that an optical axis of the illumination optical system is disposed between the movable blade and the light blocking plate, wherein the plurality of adjusting mechanisms are connected to the movable blade, and the plurality of adjusting mechanisms are arranged in the longitudinal direction of the slit-shaped illumination region and are respectively movable in the scanning direction, wherein the light blocking plate is movable in the longitudinal direction of the slit-shaped illumination region, and wherein the uneven-illuminance corrector adjusts the slit width at each position in the longitudinal direction of the slit-shaped illumination region by changing a position of the light blocking plate in the longitudinal direction of the slit-shaped illumination region and by changing a position of each of the plurality of adjusting mechanisms in the scanning direction, and corrects uneven illuminance on the substrate.