Rivas Murias, BeatrizVila Fungueiriño, José ManuelRivadulla Fernández, José Francisco2020-05-282020-05-282015Rivas-Murias, B., Manuel Vila-Fungueiriño, J. & Rivadulla, F. High quality thin films of thermoelectric misfit cobalt oxides prepared by a chemical solution method. Sci Rep 5, 11889 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/srep11889http://hdl.handle.net/10347/22651Misfit cobaltates ([Bi/Ba/Sr/Ca/CoO]nRS[CoO2]q) constitute the most promising family of thermoelectric oxides for high temperature energy harvesting. However, their complex structure and chemical composition makes extremely challenging their deposition by high-vacuum physical techniques. Therefore, many of them have not been prepared as thin films until now. Here we report the synthesis of high-quality epitaxial thin films of the most representative members of this family of compounds by a water-based chemical solution deposition method. The films show an exceptional crystalline quality, with an electrical conductivity and thermopower comparable to single crystals. These properties are linked to the epitaxial matching of the rock-salt layers of the structure to the substrate, producing clean interfaces free of amorphous phases. This is an important step forward for the integration of these materials with complementary n-type thermoelectric oxides in multilayer nanostructuresengThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Solid-state chemistryThermoelectricsjournal article10.1038/srep118892045-2322open access