Nanostructured Oxide (SnO, FTO) Thin Films for Energy Harvesting: A Significant Increase in Thermoelectric Power at Low Temperature.

Previous studies have shown that undoped and doped SnO thin films have better optical and electrical properties. This study aims to investigate the thermoelectric properties of two distinct semiconducting oxide thin films, namely SnO and F-doped SnO (FTO), by the nebulizer spray pyrolysis technique. An X-ray diffraction study reveals that the synthesized films exhibit a tetragonal structure with the (200) preferred orientation. The film structural quality increases from SnO to FTO due to the substitution of F ions into the host lattice. The film thickness increases from 530 nm for SnO to 650 nm for FTO films. Room-temperature electrical resistivity decreases from (8.96 ± 0.02) × 10 Ω·cm to (4.64 ± 0.01) × 10 Ω·cm for the SnO and FTO thin films, respectively. This is due to the increase in the carrier density of the films, (2.92 ± 0.02) × 10 cm (SnO) and (1.63 ± 0.03) × 10 cm (FTO), caused by anionic substitution. It is confirmed that varying the temperature (K) enhances the electron transport properties. The obtained Seebeck coefficient () increases as the temperature is increased, up to 360 K. The synthesized films exhibit the value of -234 ± 3 μV/K (SnO) and -204 ± 3 μV/K (FTO) at 360 K. The estimated power factor (PF) drastically increases from ~70 (μW/m·K) to ~900 (μW/m·K) for the SnO and FTO film, respectively.