Growth temperature-dependent metal–insulator transition of vanadium dioxide epitaxial films on perovskite strontium titanate (111) single crystals

Abstract

Vanadium dioxide (VO2) epitaxial films were grown on perovskite single-crystal strontium titanate (SrTiO3) substrates by reactive radio-frequency magnetron sputtering. The growth temperature-dependent metal–insulator transition (MIT) behavior of the VO2 epitaxial films was then investigated. We found that the order of magnitude of resistance change across the MIT increased from 102 to 104 with increasing growth temperature. In contrast, the temperature of the MIT does not strongly depend on the growth temperature and is fairly stable at about 345 K. On one hand, the increasing magnitude of the MIT is attributed to the better crystallinity and thus larger grain size in the (010)-VO2/(111)-SrTiO3 epitaxial films at elevated temperature. On the other hand, the strain states do not change in the VO2 films deposited at various temperatures, resulting in stable V-V chains and V-O bonds in the VO2 epitaxial films. The accompanied orbital occupancy near the Fermi level is also constant and thus the MIT temperatures of VO2 films deposited at various temperatures are nearly the same. This work demonstrates that high-quality VO2 can be grown on perovskite substrates, showing potential for integration into oxide heterostructures and superlattices.