| 摘要 |
PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an illumination optical apparatus, aligner and method therefor which can provide irregular illumination such as annular illumination or 4-pole illumination having a uniform illuminance distribution, while properly suppressing the loss of light quantity in an aperture stop. SOLUTION: The illumination optical apparatus includes a first fly-eye lens 4 as a sort of optical integrator forming a multiple light source of many light sources based on light fluxes from the light sources, and a condenser lens for guiding light flux from the first fly-eye lens 4 onto a surface to be illuminated. The apparatus further includes a diffraction optical element 1 as a light flux converting means for forming a plurality of planar light sources biased from an annular surface light source or a reference optical axis on a pupil surface PL4 of the apparatus and on an incident surface PL3 as a conjugate surface of a surface to be illuminated. At least, any one of the first fly-eye lens 4 and diffraction optical element 1 compensates for an irregularity in the illuminance distribution of at least any one of the planar light sources formed on the pupil surface PL4 or diffraction optical element 1.
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