Ultra-fast fabrication of lanthanum strontium manganese thin films using intense pulsed light irradiation

Abstract Commercialization of thin film manufacturing is limited due to the long process time and fabrication cost. To solve these problems, the intense pulsed light sintering method was proposed in this paper. This novel sintering process using xenon lamp irradiation accomplished sintering in milliseconds in ambient air. For evaluation of the sintering effects, wide ranges of irradiation energy densities and substrate temperatures were investigated. The additional thermal energy from bottom-heating results in reducing the required photonic energy density. A flash light sintering process was applied to fabricate a lanthanum strontium manganese (La0.8Sr0.2Mn1O3-δ) perovskite structure used in energy and memory devices. The La0.8Sr0.2Mn1O3-δ thin film was coated by an electrostatic spray deposition (ESD) technique, using chemical deposition. This ESD technique is suitable for the flash light sintering process because a wet chemical method facilitates rapid and low-cost commercial fabrication. After the LSMO thin films were coated, the conventional thermal and flash light sintering processes were conducted, and the properties of the LSMO thin film were evaluated for remnant organics, electrical conductivity, crystallinity, and surface morphology. Flash light sintering delivers a complete sintering process in under 1 s, eliminating the frequent obstacles inherent in thermal sintering.