Growth of VO2 films with metal-insulator transition on silicon substrates in inductively coupled plasma-assisted sputtering

Single-phase monoclinic vanadium dioxide (VO2) films were grown on a Si(100) substrate using inductively coupled plasma (ICP)-assisted sputtering with an internal coil. The VO2 film exhibited metal-insulator (M-I) transition at around 65 °C with three orders of change in resistivity, with a minimum hysteresis width of 2.2 °C. X-ray diffraction showed structural phase transition (SPT) from monoclinic to tetragonal rutile VO2. For conventional reactive magnetron sputtering, vanadium oxides with excess oxygen (V2O5 and V3O7) could not be eliminated from stoichiometric VO2. Single-phase monoclinic VO2 growths that are densely filled with smaller crystal grains are important for achieving M-I transition with abrupt resistivity change.