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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 February 2011
We present a comparative study of the microstructure of Ca3Co4O9 single crystals and c-axis oriented Ca3Co4O9 thin films grown on glass substrates. Though both crystals and films have similar values of Seekbeck coefficient and electric resistivity at room temperature, their microstructures are rather different. Extensive high resolution transmission electron microscopy (TEM) studies reveal that the films grown on glass substrates have abundant stacking faults, which is in contrast to the perfect crystalline structure found in the single crystal sample. The c-axis lattice constants derived from the x-ray diffraction (XRD) and TEM measurements for the single crystal sample and the thin film are virtually the same, suggesting that the thin film on the glass substrate was not strained.