A method of sintering, crystallizing and/or crosslinking of a coating material on a substrate

The present invention relates to a method of at least one of sintering, crystallization and/or crosslinking of a coating material (2) on a substrate (1) with laser radiation. The coating material (2) is scanned with a laser beam (8) along overlapping processing traces, said scanning being performed by moving the laser beam (8) with a first speed in a first direction while the substrate (1) is moved with a second speed slower than the first speed relative to the laser beam (8) or vice versa in a second direction perpendicular to the first direction. The intensity of the laser beam (8), the first speed and a ratio of the first speed and the second speed are selected such that the overlap of the processing traces on the coating material (2) results in local peak temperatures of the coating material (2) above a threshold temperature (17) which are repeatedly reached within a time period (18). The peak temperatures and time period (18) are selected to achieve said sintering, crystallizing and/or crosslinking of the coating material. With the proposed method the thermal load on the substrate is substantially reduced compared to processes using continuous heating.