Micropatterning of high T_c films with an excimer laser

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 T c 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 T c. 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.