Nanopatterning of multiferroic BiFeO3 using “soft” electron beam lithography

The authors report fabrication of multiferroic BiFeO3 (BFO) by the soft electron beam lithography technique. BiFeO3 nanopatterns with less than 100nm characteristic dimension are fabricated from its liquid-phase precursor on diverse substrates. The chemical constituents and phase purity are characterized by transmission electron microscopy. The ferroelectric behavior is confirmed by piezoresponse force microscopy. A saturation magnetization of about 10emu∕cm3 is observed, demonstrating the multiferroic characteristic of the BFO nanopatterns. Furthermore, the BFO nanolines pattened on SrTiO3 substrate exhibit a bamboolike structure, which can serve as an excellent model system for investigating the contribution of grain boundaries to the leakage current.