Thermal aberrations caused by absorption of laser energy are the key factors that make the image performance of lithographic projection lens degrade. Compensation of thermal aberrations is inevitable. A new compensation method of wavefront aberrations by controllable heating of a lens using film heater matrix is presented. For the refractive index of glass changes with temperature, heating on the periphery of a lens will produce a controlled wavefront change that can compensate for the system′s thermal aberrations. The feasibility of the compensation method is validated by compensating the wavefront of a plate lens. The results show that the wavefront of lens changes from 12.52 nm root mean square (RMS) to 2.95 nm (RMS) after compensation, indicating that the compensation method is effective and feasible.