Rapid Thermal Annealing of Double Perovskite Thin Films Formed by Polymer Assisted Deposition

The annealing process is an important step common to epitaxial films prepared by chemical solution deposition methods. It is so because the final microstructure of the films can be severely affected by the precise features of the thermal processing. In this work we analyze the structural and magnetic properties of double perovskite La₂CoMnO₆ and La₂NiMnO₆ epitaxial thin films prepared by polymer-assisted deposition (PAD) and crystallized by rapid thermal annealing (RTA). It is found that samples prepared by RTA have similar values of saturation magnetization and Curie temperature to their counterparts prepared by using conventional thermal annealing (CTA) processes, thus indicating low influence of the heating rates on the B-B' site cationic ordering of the A₂BB'O₆ double perovskite structure. However, a deeper analysis of the magnetic behavior suggested some differences in the actual microstructure of the films.