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AssigneeNikon Corporation
InventorsYoshitomo Nagahashi, Saburo Kamiya, Koichi Katsura
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An air conditioner arranged in a machine chamber supplies gas for air conditioning into an exposure chamber via a supply path, and performs air conditioning of the exposure chamber. Then, the gas for air conditioning that has performed air conditioning returns to the machine chamber via an exhaust path. A chemical filter is provided in part of the exhaust path returning to the machine chamber from the exposure chamber. This filter securely removes contaminants that are introduced by outgassing and the like in an exposure apparatus main body and that are contained in the gas for air conditioning returning to the machine chamber from the exposure chamber. Accordingly, the inside of the exposure chamber can be kept chemically clean. Therefore, highly accurate exposure quantity control and thus highly accurate exposure can be performed for a long period of time, and high throughput can be maintained for a long period of time.
An exposure apparatus, comprising:
An environmental control method of an exposure apparatus that supplies gas at least the temperature of which is controlled into an exposure chamber that houses at least a part of an exposure apparatus main body such that environmental conditions are kept substantially constant inside said exposure chamber, said exposure apparatus main body transferring a predetermined pattern onto a substrate, wherein
An exposure apparatus, comprising:
The exposure apparatus according to claim further comprising:
An environmental controller suitable for environmental control inside an environmental control chamber in which an exposure apparatus that transfers a predetermined pattern onto a substrate is arranged, said environmental controller comprising:
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.