Optical Properties of Vanadium Oxide Films

As a typical Correlated Electron Material, vanadium dioxide was discovered to demonstrate metal-insulator transition at a relatively low temperature. The transition occurs from an insulating monoclinic phase to a metallic tetragonal phase (rutile structure) upon heating with the rearrangement of vanadium ions along an axis of the monoclinic lattice. The phase change corresponds to a colossal resistivity drop by over four orders of magnitude as well as other dramatic property changes, which can be reversible via a natural cooling process. Therefore, vanadium dioxide has attracted extensive attention for its applications in highly sensitive smart devices that can abruptly respond to diverse external stimuli. In recent years, rapid advancement in the fabrication and property modulation of vanadium dioxide has greatly facilitated its applications in many aspects, such as thermal sensing, thermochromics, electronics, and multiple-response mechanics. The optical properties of thin vanadium dioxide films VO2 were researched using the modulation polarimetry technique. For VO2 thin film deposition the two-step method was used. VO2 films were grown on quartz glass substrates by magnetron sputtering of the VO2 target. The films had different modifications of composition, structure, morphology, and optical properties due to the manufacturing technology. The angular dependence of the reflection coefficients of electromagnetic radiation of s- and p- polarizations and their difference for different wavelengths was measured in the paper. The polarization characteristics were simulated by a matrix transformation of the Fresnel formulas. The values of the refractive and absorption indices of the films were obtained from the condition of the best agreement between the experiment and mathematical simulation. Atomic force microscope and X-ray diffraction analysis were used as standard analytical methods.