Thermoelectric Oxide Thin Films with Hopping Transport

In this chapter, we firstly show the interest of thermoelectric oxide thin films with hopping transport in terms of thermoelectric properties. Thermoelectric and electrical properties of hopping oxides will be presented with some examples of oxide materials and we will discuss about the interest of the development of thermoelectric thin films, more specifically in the case of hopping oxide semiconductor thin films. A second part devoted to make accurate measurements of the Seebeck coefficient of the thermoelectric thin films will then be showed. Then, we will expose in a last part the transport properties of one hopping oxide semiconductor deposited with the Mg doped CuCrO2 compound. A description of the optimization of the annealing temperature and the film thickness will be made in the aim to optimize the transport properties. At the end, we will expose the case of a three-strip Mg doped CuCrO2 thermoelectric thin film module which generates a power of 11 nW with a thermal gradient of 225 °C and we will discuss about their possible applications