Formation mechanism and thermoelectric properties of CaMnO 3 thin films synthesized by annealing of Ca 0.5 Mn 0.5 O films

• Published in: Journal of materials science 2019, Vol.54 (11), p.8482
• Main Authors: Ekström, Erik, le Febvrier, Arnaud, Fournier, Daniele, Lu, Jun, Ene, Vladimir-Lucian, Van Nong, Ngo, Eriksson, Fredrik, Eklund, Per, Paul, Biplab
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 0022-2461; 1573-4803
• DOI: 10.1007/s10853-019-03496-7

A two-step synthesis approach was utilized to grow CaMnO 3 on M-, R- and C-plane sapphire substrates. Radio-frequency reactive magnetron sputtering was used to grow rock-salt-structured (Ca, Mn)O followed by a 3-h annealing step at 800 °C in oxygen flow to form the distorted perovskite phase CaMnO 3 . The effect of temperature in the post-annealing step was investigated using x-ray diffraction. The phase transformation to CaMnO 3 started at 450 °C and was completed at 550 °C. Films grown on R- and C-plane sapphire showed similar structure with a mixed orientation, whereas the film grown on M-plane sapphire was epitaxially grown with an out-of-plane orientation in the [202] direction. The thermoelectric characterization showed that the film grown on M-plane sapphire has about 3.5 times lower resistivity compared to the other films with a resistivity of 0.077 Ωcm at 500 °C. The difference in resistivity is a result from difference in crystal structure, single orientation for M-plane sapphire compared to mixed for R- and C-plane sapphire. The highest absolute Seebeck coefficient value is − 350 µV K −1 for all films and is decreasing with temperature.