Abstract: Described are a vibration actively reducing apparatus and a method for identifying a transfer function in the vibration actively reducing apparatus. An identification signal which is a quantization of at least one sinusoidal wave is supplied from a controller of the vibration actively reducing apparatus to a controlled vibration source in synchronization with a predetermined output sampling clock (SCo) to develop an identification vibration therefrom. The controller reads a residual vibration signal from a residual vibration detector of the actively reducing apparatus in synchronization with a predetermined input sampling clock (SCi). After read of the residual vibration signal as a time series data for each frequency, an FFT calculation is carried out for each time series data to extract a frequency component of the original sinusoidal wave.

Abstract: Alignment in X-ray lithography is generally effected in such a manner that the surface of a target mark for alignment formed on a wafer is illuminated with light for alignment through an X-ray mask, and the position of the wafer is detected from the reflected light. On the basis of the finding that the reflected light from the mask, particularly from an absorber formed thereon, greatly degrades the precision and reliability in measurement, the present invention provides a pattern transfer mask provided with a thin film which lowers the reflection factor of the mask the thin film having a thickness set a .lambda./4n (.lambda.:the wavelength of the light for alignment; n: an integer) or an odd-number multiple thereof. Thus, it is advantageously possible to overcome the above-described lowering of precision and reliablity.