Formation of ferroelectric perovskite nanostructure patterns using latex sphere monolayers as masks:: An ambient gas pressure effect during pulsed laser deposition

A simple approach for obtaining two kinds of patterns of perovskite nanostructures was developed by varying the ambient gas pressure during pulsed laser deposition (PLD) through latex sphere templates. The effect of ambient gas pressure on the formation of nanostructure patterns using latex sphere masks were also investigated. It was demonstrated that two types of nanostructure patterns can be generated simultaneously by nanosphere lithography (NSL) by adjusting the ambient gas pressure. It was observed that post-deposition annealing treatment does not cause any significant change in the overall shape, except for some minor shrinkage during crystallization. The results showed that the obtained patterns can be changed from hexagonal arrays of well-separated nano-pyramids to interconnected nanocrowns by increasing the ambient gas pressure. This approach should be applicable to some other template based micro and nano-patterning technique.