Patterning of nanocrystalline La0.7Sr0.3MnO3 thin films prepared by sol-gel process combined with soft lithography

Patterning of nanocrystalline La0.7Sr0.3MnO3 thin films were fabricated by a sol-gel process combined with soft lithography. The structure of the patterned crystalline films was characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), atomic force microscopy (AFM), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The actual width of the crystalline film micro-stripes, which derived from the mold with a 10 μm wide channel, was only about 7 μm. Significant shrinkage could be observed in the patterned film during the annealing process. Patterned crystalline film micro-stripes were uniform, which mainly consisted of grains with an average size of 50 nm. XRD and XPS analyses indicated the formation of the crystalline perovskite phase in the patterned crystalline films.