Exposure method, method of fabricating periodic microstructure, method of fabricating grid polarizing element and exposure apparatus

Disclosed herein an exposure apparatus capable of implementing a microfabrication onto a work with a higher throughput and a lower cost. The exposure apparatus generates interfering light by crossing two or more branched light beams branched from output light from a coherent light source at a predetermined interfering angle, and exposes the substrate by repeating an irradiation onto the substrate with the interfering light and a conveyance of the substrate. At this moment, the exposure apparatus shapes in interfering light irradiation region on the substrate onto which the interfering light is irradiated into a predetermined shape. Then, the exposure apparatus disposes a plurality of the interfering light irradiation regions in successive shots to be located adjacent to each other on the substrate in a direction of conveying the substrate without the interfering light irradiation regions being overlapped when exposing the substrate while conveying the substrate in a stepwise manner.