Ge 2 Sb 2 Te 5 (GST) films grown onto SiO 2 (250 nm)/Si substrate at room temperature were annealed at various temperatures to investigate the structural variations. The GST films changed from amorphous to face-centered cubic (FCC) and hexagonal closed packed (HCP) crystalline phases as the annealing temperature increases and the samples annealed at 380 • C showed co-existence of the FCC and the HCP. Samples annealed at 380 • C showed the highest charge carrier concentration, the lowest resistivity, and the highest power factor. © The Author ( Highly efficient thin thermoelectric films have recently gained acceptance for potential applications in the microelectronics industry as sensors, microcoolers, and as low-power generators.1,2 Thermoelectric transport can have a large impact on the performance of semiconductor devices and related nanostructures.3-5 Compared with the conventional mechanical devices, thermoelectric devices have the advantages such as maintenance-free, better transient response. 6,7 The primary candidate technology for miniaturizing thermoelectric devices is to apply semiconductor-processing technologies including thin film fabrication. The efficiency of conversion is described by the dimensionless, thermoelectric figure-of-merit, ZT = S 2 T/ρκ, where S is the Seebeck coefficient, T is the absolute temperature, ρ is the electrical resistivity, and κ is the total thermal conductivity. A high ZT may be achieved by reducing κ and by enhancing the thermoelectric power factor, P = S 2 /ρ. The interrelated Seebeck coefficient, electrical conductivity, and thermal conductivity make it difficult to improve one transport property without affecting the others. 8 The key issue of micro-thermoelectric devices is how to fabricate thin films with high performance by semiconductor-processing technologies.Various chalcogenide materials reported that the holes are responsible for their positive Seebeck coefficient. 9 The Seebeck coefficient is strongly depended on the phase and the processing conditions. The Seebeck coefficients for the Ge 2 Sb 2 Te 5 (GST) films of various thicknesses and for the phase purity such as amorphous and crystalline phases have been reported. 10,11 There are two types of crystal structure in the GST compounds. One is the metastable rocksalt structure with Te atoms occupying sites on one face-centered-cubic (FCC) sublattice, and Ge and Sb randomly forming the other FCC sublattice. The other is the hexagonal structure (HCP), which is composed of Te layers forming a complicated cubic close packed structure with Ge and Sb atoms randomly occupying the octahedral interstices. Friedrich et al. reported that the temperature dependent measurements of the electrical resistance have been employed to study structural changes in direct current (dc) sputtered GST films.12 Using the films with a thickness between 80 and 250 nm, they reported that the pronounced changes of film resistance due to structural changes enabled a precise determination of transition temperature and activation energies. T...