Within the development of 'soft solution processing' (SSP) which aims to fabricate ceramics from solutions without a firing step, as a more environmentally friendly technique, we propose a method of 'direct patterning' which makes patterned ceramic films in a solution without a firing step. In the present paper, we show for the first time 'electrochemically activated (liquid \ liquid) interfacial reactions' for the direct patterning of LiCoO2 as a progression of the hydrothermal-electrochemical deposition method, which is a typical SSP technique. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.