A method for producing an aluminum layer is provided. The method includes depositing a metallic seed layer on a substrate, the seed layer having a thickness of not more than 5 nm, and also includes applying the aluminum layer to the seed layer, wherein the aluminum layer has a thickness of more than 30 nm. Further, an optical element, which can be a mirror layer, is provided including the metallic seed layer and the aluminum layer.

A method of making a mirror for use with extreme ultraviolet or x-ray radiation includes: i) providing a base substrate having a curved surface, wherein the curved surface deviates from a curvature of a target mirror surface at high spatial frequencies corresponding to spatial periods less than 2 mm; and ii) securing a first side of a thin plate to the curved surface of the base substrate to cover the curved surface, wherein the plate has a thickness thin enough to conform to the curvature of the target mirror surface and thick enough to attenuate deviations at the high spatial frequencies on a second side of the thin plate opposite the first side that are caused by the deviations on the curved surface of the base substrate. A mirror made by the method is also disclosed.

An optical element (11) has an optical surface (20) with a diffraction structure (21). The optical surface (20) is curved such that a distance-to-diameter ratio between a distance A between a deepest point (T) and a highest point (H) and a largest diameter D is greater than 1/10. When producing the optical element (11), firstly a raw optical element having a raw optical surface to be provided with the diffraction structure (21) is provided. The raw optical surface is then coated with a photoresist with the aid of an isotropic deposition method and the photoresist is exposed and then developed. This results in a production method for an optical element with an optical surface having a diffraction structure, which method satisfies stringent requirements made of a structure accuracy when producing the diffraction structure.

An optical element (7, 8) for the VUV wavelength range includes a substrate (7a, 8a), and a coating (15) applied to the substrate (7a, 8a). The coating (15) has at least one fluorine scavenger layer (17, 17a, . . . , 17n) having a fluoride material (M.sup.x+F.sub.x.sup.−) doped with at least one preferably metallic dopant ion (A.sup.x+). Also described are an optical arrangement that includes at least one such optical element (7, 8), as well as a method for producing such an optical element (7, 8).

An illumination system includes a plurality of pixels (or spots) that are (or may be) configured in one or more polarization configuration types. The pixels of the illumination system may be configured to promote particular types of polarization (e.g., transverse electric (TE) polarization, transvers magnetic (TM) polarization) to increase pattern contrast while achieving suitable exposure operation throughput. Moreover, the pixels of the pixels of the illumination system may be configured to achieve free-form (arbitrary or freely-configurable) polarization, which permits the polarization of radiation to be tailored to particular exposure operation patterns and other parameters.

A field facet for a field facet mirror of a projection exposure apparatus has a reflection surface spanned by two field facet coordinates. An actuator device having at least two independently controllable actuator units serves to deform the reflection surface in at least two independent deformation degrees of freedom. A first of the deformation degrees of freedom brings about a change in a curvature of the reflection surface along a primary curvature coordinate which coincides with one of the field facet coordinates. A second of the deformation degrees of freedom brings about a change in a torsion of the reflection surface about the primary curvature coordinate. This can yield a field facet, the imaging performance of which is optimized, for example adapted to different illumination channel assignments within the projection exposure apparatus.

A multilayer mirror (M) reflecting extreme ultraviolet (EUV) radiation from a first wavelength range in an EUV spectral region includes a substrate (SUB) and a stack of layers (SL). The stack of layers has layers having a low index material and layers having a high index material. The low index material has a lower real part of the refractive index than does the high index material at a given operating wavelength in the first wavelength range. The stack of layers also includes a spectral purity filter on the stack of layers. The spectral purity filter is effective as an anti-reflection layer for ultraviolet (UV) radiation from a second wavelength range in a UV spectral region to increase an EUV-UV-reflectivity ratio of the multilayer mirror. The spectral purity filter (SPF) includes a non-diffractive graded-index anti-reflection layer (GI-AR) effective to reduce reflectivity in the second wavelength range.

An illumination optical unit for EUV projection lithography illuminates an illumination field with illumination light from a light source. A first facet mirror of the illumination optical unit has a plurality of first facets for the reflective guidance of partial beams of a beam of the EUV illumination light. Disposed downstream of the first facet mirror is a second facet mirror with a plurality of second facets for further reflective guidance of the partial beams. As a result of this, the reflective beam guidance that the two facets predetermines object field illumination channels, by which the whole object field is illuminable by the illumination light in each case and to which exactly one first facet and exactly one second facet is assigned in each case.

The information display apparatus configured to display video information of a virtual image on a reflecting surface of conveyance includes: a display configured to display the video information; and a virtual image optical system configured to display a virtual image at a front of the conveyance by reflecting light emitted from the display by means of the reflecting surface. The virtual image optical system includes a concave mirror and an optical element. The optical element is arranged between the display and the concave mirror, and is configured to correct distortion of the virtual image obtained so as to correspond to a viewpoint position of a driver on a basis of a shape of the concave mirror and a shape of the optical element. The information display apparatus further includes a virtual image double image conversion reducer configured to reduce double image conversion of the virtual image.

An extreme ultraviolet (EUV) collector inspection apparatus and method capable of precisely inspecting a contamination state of an EUV collector and EUV reflectance in accordance with the contamination state are provided. The EUV collector inspection apparatus includes a light source arranged in front of an EUV collector to be inspected and configured to output light in a visible light (VIS) band from UV rays, an optical device configured to output narrowband light from the light, and a camera configured to perform imaging from an UV band to a VIS band. An image by wavelength of the EUV collector is obtained by using the optical device and the camera and a contamination state of the EUV collector is inspected.