Using a high dielectric material as substitute for SiOxNy in dielectric film capacitors of dynamic memories (DRAM) allows a significantly higher integration density and a reduction of the die size, even with planar capacitors. BaTiO3 is such a material. A dielectric constant of epsilon(r) > 1000 has been achieved in thin films, made by pulsed laser deposition (PLD). For applications in microelectronic memories it is necessary to produce crystalline, defect-free and oriented BaTiO3 thin films at substrate temperatures, T-S < 450 degreesC. Sintered targets of BaTiO3 are ablated by KrF excimer laser radiation. The processing gas atmosphere consists of O-2 at pressures of 0.1-50 Pa. The substrate is resitively heated to 360-440 degreesC and annealed after or during PLD on Pt/Ti/Si multilayer substrates using KrF excimer laser radiation with fluences up to 120 mJ/cm(2). The temperature distribution in the BaTiO3/Pt/Ti/Si multilayers during laser annealing is dynamically modelled and related to the resulting crystal quality and the dielectric properties of the films. With PLD a minimum substrate temperature of 500 degreesC is necessary to deposit crystalline BaTiO3 films. Using in situ laser crystallisation crystalline BaTiO3 films can be deposited at substrate temperatures of T-S = 360-440 degreesC showing a dielectric constant of up to epsilon(r) = 1200. The ferroelectric and dielectric properties of the films are determined by C-V and P-V impedance measurements and correlated to the chemical and structural properties, as determined by X-ray photoemission spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, micro Raman spectroscopy and scanning electron microscopy. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V All rights reserved.