Theory of the Effects of Rapid Thermal Annealing on Thin-Film Crystallization

The crystallization of amorphous thin films by annealing can sometimes be greatly aided by rapidly bringing the films up to the annealing temperature, so-called rapid thermal annealing (RTA). We have modeled this phenomenon for lead zirconate titanate thin films, incorporating the presence of a long-lived secondary crystalline state, and have studied the approach to steady state using Langevin simulations. We find that one can accurately model this RTA process only when one includes the long-ranged interactions expected to be generated by elastic misfits of the inhomogeneous intermediate state.