Micropatterning of high T c films with an excimer laser

Abstract
Micron‐wide lines of high Tc Y‐Ba‐Cu‐O have been successfully patterned by ablating the films with a pulsed excimer laser. The high Tc films are mounted onto a computer‐controlled stepping stage and irradiated with a demagnified image of a variable‐size rectangular aperture. This technique has been used for fabricating features ranging from several centimeters in length to submicron in width without any degradation in Tc. For example, a superconducting microstructure of Y‐Ba‐Cu‐O, nominally 1 μm wide and 2.5 μm long, with a Tc (R=0) of 88 K and a Jc of 5×104 A/cm2 at 4.2 K was fabricated.