  In the quest for novel magnetoelectric materials, we have grown, stabilized
and explored the properties of La3BAlMnO9 (B = Co or Mn) thin films. In this
paper, we report the influence of the growth parameters that promote B/Al/Mn
ordering in the pseudo-cubic unit cell and their likely influence on the
magnetic and multiferroic properties. The temperature dependence of the
magnetization shows that La3CoAlMnO9 is ferromagnetic up to 190 K while
La3NiAlMnO9 shows a TC of 130 K. The behavior of these films are compared and
contrasted with related La2BMnO6 double perovskites. It is observed that the
insertion of AlO6 octahedra between CoO6 and MnO6 suppresses significantly the
strength of the superexchange interaction, spin-phonon and spin-polar coupling.
