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      Surface-growth-mode-induced strain effects on the metal–insulator transition in epitaxial vanadium dioxide thin films

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          Abstract

          The surface growth mode can induce the anomalous compressive strain in thicker VO 2/Al 2O 3 epitaxial films, which can't be explained by conventional epitaxial lattice-mismatch. Strain may be an effective tool for manipulating MIT of the VO 2 films.

          Abstract

          A series of high-quality vanadium dioxide (VO 2) epitaxial thin films on (0001)-oriented sapphire substrates with various thicknesses were fabricated using radio frequency (RF) magnetron sputtering techniques. Structural analysis revealed that an out-of-plane tensile strain (∼+0.035%) in the thinner VO 2 epitaxial films was induced by epitaxial lattice mismatch between the monoclinic VO 2 films and Al 2O 3 substrates. However, an anomalous compressive strain (∼−0.32%) was accumulated along the out-of-plane direction in the thicker VO 2 films. This result contradicts with the conventional epitaxial lattice-mismatch mechanism for strain formed in epitaxial films. We attribute this anomalous strain to the surface growth mode (island growth) in the thicker VO 2 films, especially those sputtered from the metal target at low pressure. Furthermore, the metal–insulator transition (MIT) temperature shifted to lower temperature with decreasing thickness, which is attributed to modulation of the orbital occupancy through the epitaxial strain and growth-mode-induced strain in the VO 2 epitaxial films. Moreover, the very large resistance change (on the order of magnitude ∼10 3) in the VO 2/Al 2O 3 epitaxial heterostructures is promising for electrical switch applications.

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          Mott Transition in VO2 Revealed by Infrared Spectroscopy and Nano-Imaging

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            Control of the metal–insulator transition in vanadium dioxide by modifying orbital occupancy

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              Strain engineering and one-dimensional organization of metal-insulator domains in single-crystal vanadium dioxide beams.

              Correlated electron materials can undergo a variety of phase transitions, including superconductivity, the metal-insulator transition and colossal magnetoresistance. Moreover, multiple physical phases or domains with dimensions of nanometres to micrometres can coexist in these materials at temperatures where a pure phase is expected. Making use of the properties of correlated electron materials in device applications will require the ability to control domain structures and phase transitions in these materials. Lattice strain has been shown to cause the coexistence of metallic and insulating phases in the Mott insulator VO(2). Here, we show that we can nucleate and manipulate ordered arrays of metallic and insulating domains along single-crystal beams of VO(2) by continuously tuning the strain over a wide range of values. The Mott transition between a low-temperature insulating phase and a high-temperature metallic phase usually occurs at 341 K in VO(2), but the active control of strain allows us to reduce this transition temperature to room temperature. In addition to device applications, the ability to control the phase structure of VO(2) with strain could lead to a deeper understanding of the correlated electron materials in general.
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                Author and article information

                Journal
                RSCACL
                RSC Advances
                RSC Adv.
                Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC)
                2046-2069
                2015
                2015
                : 5
                : 98
                : 80122-80128
                Affiliations
                [1 ]National Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory & Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry for Energy Materials
                [2 ]University of Science and Technology of China
                [3 ]Hefei
                [4 ]China
                [5 ]CAS Key Laboratory of Materials for Energy Conversion
                [6 ]Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at the Microscale and Department of Physics
                [7 ]School of Physics and Chemistry
                [8 ]Henan Polytechnic University
                [9 ]Jiaozuo
                Article
                10.1039/C5RA13490K
                ec108029-a73e-401b-b295-24a121a7e65c
                © 2015
                History

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