To establish a technique for fabricating microstructural devices using half-metallic manganese oxides without any negative effect of microfabrication, we investigated the effects of defects in La0.7Sr0.3MnO3 film caused by Ar ion milling and a method for removing them by means of annealing. Our results show that Ar ion milling results in a resistance increase of up to several orders in magnitude with a damage depth of about 40 nm. We found that annealing in oxygen atmosphere corrects these

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... ems almost completely. Furthermore, we actually fabricated model devices and demonstrated that undamaged devices can be fabricated by annealing in oxygen after the milling process.