Electrical and optical switching properties of ion implanted VO2 thin films

The metal-insulator transition in vanadium dioxide thin films implanted with O+ ions was studied. Ion implantation lowered the metal-insulator transition temperature of the VO2 films by 12 °C compared to the unimplanted ones, as measured both optically and electrically. The lowering of the transition temperature was accomplished without significantly reducing the mid-wave infrared optical transmission in the insulating state for wavelengths > 4.3 μm. Raman spectroscopy was used to examine changes to the crystalline structure of the implanted films. The Raman spectra indicate that ion implantation effects are not annealed out for temperatures up to 120 °C.