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Effect of thickness on infrared optical property of VO2 film deposited by magnetron sputtering

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Abstract

A series of VO2 films with different thicknesses (from about 25 nm to 250 nm) were prepared on sapphire substrates by radio frequency magnetron sputtering. The deposition times varied from 15 min to 150 min. The metal to insulator transitions (MIT) of the films were studied. The optical transmittance of the films to infrared light (with a wavelength of 4.0 µm) at room temperature (30°C) varied significantly with film thickness, ranging from 86.53% to 41.01%. The modulation property also changes with thickness, decreasing from 22.89% to 14.74%. The phase transition temperature remained approximately 70°C during heating, and approximately 53°C during cooling, despite a tenfold increase in the deposition time, and the resulting thickness of the films. Raman spectroscopy of the films indicated that the intensities of the characteristic peaks corresponding to V2O5 increase with the increasing of film thickness. Temperature-dependent Raman spectroscopy indicated that the peaks corresponding to VO2 undergo reversible changes during heating and cooling of the films, while the peaks corresponding to V2O5 remain unchanged throughout. Careful control of the V2O5 content of the films (by varying the duration of the deposition process) allows control over their transmittance and optical modulation properties without changes in the phase transition temperature. This provides a new method of controlling the optical properties of these materials and shows promise for their potential applications in thermochromic windows.

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Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. National Key Laboratory of Science and Technology on Advanced Composites in Special Environments, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, 150080, China

    ZhenHuai Yang, QiuLing Yang, Lei Yang, Bing Dai, Fei Xia, Peng Wang, Shuai Guo, Gang Gao, LiangGe Xu, YuMin Zhang & JiaQi Zhu

  2. Key Laboratory of Micro-systems and Micro-structures Manufacturing, Ministry of Education, Harbin, 150080, China

    JiaQi Zhu

  3. Center of Analysis Measurement, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, 150080, China

    Lei Yang

Authors
  1. ZhenHuai Yang
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  2. QiuLing Yang
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  3. Lei Yang
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  4. Bing Dai
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  5. Fei Xia
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  6. Peng Wang
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  7. Shuai Guo
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  8. Gang Gao
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  9. LiangGe Xu
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  10. YuMin Zhang
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  11. JiaQi Zhu
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to JiaQi Zhu.

Additional information

This work was supported by the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars (Grant No. 51625201), the National Key Research and Development Program of China (Grant No. 2016YFE0201600), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 51702066, 51911530123), and the Key Project of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. U1809210).

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Yang, Z., Yang, Q., Yang, L. et al. Effect of thickness on infrared optical property of VO2 film deposited by magnetron sputtering. Sci. China Technol. Sci. 63, 1591–1598 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11431-020-1656-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11431-020-1656-5

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