Optical component of quartz glass, method for producing said component, and method for exposing a substrate

A method for producing an optical component of quartz glass for use in a projection lens system for immersion lithography with an operating wavelength below 250 nm, said method comprising:

• producing an SiO2 soot body,
• drying the soot body at a temperature of at least 1150° C. in vacuum or in an inert gas atmosphere and under reducing conditions in such a manner that a mean hydroxyl group content of less than 60 wt ppm is obtained,
• treating the dried soot body with a reagent reacting with oxygen defects of the quartz glass structure,
• vitrifying the soot body so as to form a cylindrical quartz glass blank,
• annealing the quartz glass blank so as to form a quartz glass cylinder at a fictive temperature above 1040° C., which surrounds a contour of the optical component to be produced with an overdimension, said cylinder having faces,
• removing part of the axial overdimension in the area of the faces of the quartz glass cylinder, and
• loading the quartz glass cylinder with hydrogen by heating in a hydrogen-containing atmosphere at a temperature below 500° C. so as to produce a mean hydrogen content in the range of 1×1016 molecules/cm3 to 1×1017 molecules/cm3.