A rapid photothermal annealing technique has been developed as a comparison method to conventional rapid thermal annealing. In this technique, the surface of a material to be annealed is irradiated with photons with less than about 800 nm. Lead lanthanum zirconia titanate (PLZT) thin films deposited by radio frequency magnetron wavelength sputtering have been annealed by rapid photothermal annealing, rapid thermal annealing, and furnace annealing. The electrical, ferroelectric, and dielectric characteristics were measured and compared for samples annealed by the three different annealing techniques. Our results show that the samples annealed by rapid photothermal annealing have the lowest leakage current densities, best fatigue properties, and smallest size and number of microcracks. High energy photons with wavelengths less than 800 nm play important roles in the processing of high quality PLZT films.