Thermally grown vanadium oxide films and their electrical properties

A metal–insulator transition (MIT) occurring in vanadium oxide films prepared in different ways has been widely studied in many laboratories. It consists of a resistive change of various orders of magnitude taking place while traversing a temperature close to 67 °C. In this work the properties of VOx films synthesized by thermal treatment of vanadium films which were vacuum-evaporated on an oxidized silicon substrate are shown. Such thermal oxidizing treatment was performed under atmospheric air at different temperatures during distinct times. Ellipsometry measurements allowed determining the thickness and optical constants of the layers after the oxidation process. From XRD, Raman and FTIR measurements, several phases with distinct oxygen content, V2O3, V3O5, VO2 and V2O5, were found in the films, depending on the oxidation time and temperature. Current–temperature measurements across the films were carried out by using sandwich-type metal–insulator–metal structures. Unlike former studies on similar structures, no MIT was observed from these measurements. On the other hand, from room-temperature current–voltage measurements a well defined memristive behavior was found as a regular result in most of our structures. This memristive behavior is ascribed to the complex defect structure in the films, including the variable amount of oxygen vacancies in the lattice, rather than to the above-mentioned metal–insulator transition in vanadium oxide.