1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an exposure technique for exposing a substrate via a mask and a projection optical system, which is suitable for exposing a long sheet-shaped photosensitive object wound in a roll shape. In addition, the present invention relates to a fabricating technique for fabricating (manufacturing) a device using such an exposure technique.
2. Description of Related Art
For example, in an exposure apparatus that is used for fabricating an element such as a semiconductor element or a liquid crystal display element, a typical exposure target (exposure object) has conventionally been a flat plate-shaped object which has high rigidity, such as a glass substrate or a semiconductor wafer which have been coated with photoresist. In recent years, in order to efficiently fabricate a device having a large area, as an exposure target, a long sheet-shaped member which is flexible and can be stored by being wound up into a roll shape has been used. When exposing such a long sheet-shaped member, as a conventional example, a part of the sheet-shaped member is exposed via a mask and a projection optical system is subjected to one-shot exposure (still exposure), the sheet-shaped member is then suctioned and moved, for example, by an exposure table, and then the suction is released and only the exposure table is returned to the initial position. The above described operation is repeatedly carried out to intermittently move the sheet-shaped member from a supply roller to a winding-up roller (for example, see Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2007-114385).
According to the conventional exposure method of the sheet-shaped member, one-shot exposure via a mask and movement of the sheet-shaped member are alternately repeated. Therefore, exposure efficiency is low, and, for example, it takes a long time to expose a sheet-shaped member which is wound up into one roll.
In contrast, a method is also considered in which the sheet-shaped member is scan-exposed while a mask and the sheet-shaped member are moved synchronously. However, in the case of mere scan exposure, for example, if the sheet-shaped member is exposed in an outward path of the mask, then it is difficult to expose the sheet-shaped member in a return path of the mask. For this reason, substantially half of the reciprocation time of the mask becomes a period at which exposure is impossible, and exposure efficiency cannot be high.