Ordered nano-lslands on (La,Ba)MnO3 thin film surface by self-organization

Self-organized nanostructures composed of discrete coherent islands were found on La0.67Ba0.33 MnO3 (LBMO) film surfaces. Our results revealed that rippled surface structures on LBMO films appeared during post-annealing at high temperature, and that the step edges of the rippled surfaces offer energetically favorable positions for the nucleation of coherent islands. The rippled surface serves as a template for the arrangement of coherent islands. This provides a new way to prepare ordered surface nanostructures in perovskite oxides without the necessity to employ any preprocessing techniques prior to the growth.