Magnetic nanowires patterned in the La2/3Sr1/3MnO3 half-metal

Bridge-shaped magnetic nanowires have been designed and patterned in half-metallic La2/3Sr1/3MnO3 thin films, using a thick negative-tone electron beam lithography (EBL) process. EBL was performed in the high resolution hydrogen silsesquioxane (HSQ) inorganic resist. This paper reports on the optimization of EBL, for which both electron beam proximity effects and pre-bake annealing temperatures have been studied. To take benefit of the proximity effects, a special bridge geometry is proposed. Hundred nanometre-wide nanowires with large aspect ratio (⩾2) have been successfully patterned and transferred in LSMO.