Stationary and dynamic radial transverse electric polarizer for high numerical aperture systems

A radial transverse electric polarizer device, comprising:

• a substrate material having a first refractive index;
• and
• a plurality of elongated azimuthally oriented elements coupled to said substrate material, said elongated elements having a second refractive index,
• wherein said plurality of elements are periodically spaced apart to form a plurality of gaps such that said radial transverse electric polarizer device interacts with an electromagnetic radiation comprising first and second polarizations to reflect substantially all of the radiation of the first polarization and transmit substantially all of the radiation of the second polarization.

A lithographic projection apparatus, comprising:

• a radiation system constructed and arranged to provide a projection beam of radiation;
• a support structure constructed and arranged to supporting a patterning device, the patterning device constructed and arranged to pattern the projection beam according to a desired pattern;
• a substrate table to hold a substrate;
• a projection system constructed and arranged to project the patterned beam onto a target portion of the substrate;
• and
• a polarizer device constructed and arranged to polarize said beam of a radiation in a transverse electric polarization direction.

A device manufacturing method, comprising:

• providing a substrate that is at least partially covered by a layer of radiation-sensitive material;
• providing a projection beam of radiation using a radiation system;
• using a patterning device to endow the projection beam with a pattern in its cross-section;
• projecting the patterned beam of radiation onto a target portion of the layer of radiation-sensitive material;
• and
• polarizing said beam of radiation in a transverse electric polarization.

A tangential polarizer device, comprising:

• a cube beam-splitter polarizer constructed and arranged to polarize at least a portion of an incident light into a linear polarized light;
• and
• a polarizing plate comprising two half-wave plates,
• wherein said polarizing plate is disposed at an end of said cube beam-splitter polarizer to polarize said linear polarized light into a first s-polarized light and a second s-polarized light such that a wave vector of said first s-polarized light and a wave vector of said second s-polarized light are perpendicular to each other.