Nanocrystalline Y 2 O 3 :Eu 3 + phosphor films and their patterning were fabricated by a Pechini sol-gel process combined with a soft lithography. X-ray diffraction (XRD), thermogravimetric and differential thermal analysis (TG-DTA), atomic force microscopy (AFM), optical microscopy, UV/vis transmission and photoluminescence (PL) spectra as well as lifetimes were used to characterize the resulting films. The results of XRD indicated that the films began to crystallize at 500 o C and the crystallinity increased with the elevation of annealing temperatures. Uniform and crack free non-patterned phosphor films were obtained, which mainly consisted of grains with an average size of 70 nm. Using micro-molding in capillaries technique, we obtained homogeneous and defects-free patterned gel and crystalline phosphor films with different stripe widths (5, 10, 20 and 50 μm). Significant shrinkage (50%) was observed in the patterned films during the heat treatment process. The doped Eu 3 + showed its characteristic emission in crystalline Y 2 O 3 phosphor films due to an efficient energy transfer from Y 2 O 3 host to them. Both the lifetimes and PL intensity of the Eu 3 + increased with increasing the annealing temperature from 500 to 900 o C, and the optimum concentrations for Eu 3 + were determined to be 5 mol%.