Regulation of the phase transition temperature of VO2 thin films deposited by reactive magnetron sputtering without doping

• Pure VO2 films were deposited on quartz glasses.
• Oxygen has great effect on the properties of VO2 films.
• Phase transition temperature can be tailored to a large scale.
• Such a large range of regulation without doping is of novelty.

Thin films of phase pure VO2(M) were fabricated on quartz glass by reactive magnetron sputtering. Structural, morphological, electrical and optical properties of the prepared samples were characterized. Interestingly, it was found that the phase transition temperature can be regulated to a large scale from 46 °C to 72 °C only by precisely controlling the oxygen partial pressure without any element doping. It was assumed that changes in the amount of free electrons and internal strain introduced by the tiny change in the oxygen-to-vanadium ratio contributed to the significantly regulated phase transition behavior.