Fabrication, temperature-dependent local structural and electrical properties of VO₂ thin films

$VO_2$ is a well-known a metal-to-insulator-transition (MIT) material, accompanied with a first order structural phase transition near room temperature. Because of the structural phase transition and the MIT occur near a same temperature, there is an ongoing argument whether the MIT is induced by the structural phase transition. $VO_2$ exhibits a relatively weak anti-oxidization ability and can be oxidized to higher-valence oxides (e.g., $V_4$ $O_7$ or $V_2$ $O_5$) when annealed at a high temperature in an oxygen-rich atmosphere. We fabricated $VO_2$ films on $Al_2$ $O_3$ (0001) substrates using a DC magnetron sputtering deposition process with carefully control the $O_2$ percentage in an atmosphere. X-ray diffraction measurements from the films showed only (0l0) peaks with no extra peaks, indicating b-oriented films. The temperature-dependent local structural properties of $VO_2$ films were investigated by using in-situ X-ray absorption fine structure (XAFS) measurements at the V K edge. XAFS revealed that the structural phase transition was occurred nearly $70^{\circ}C$ for heating process and reproducible. Resistance measurements as a function of temperature (R-T) demonstrated that the resistance of $VO_2$ films was changed by a factor of 4 near $75^{\circ}C$ which was higher than $68^{\circ}C$ reported from a $VO_2$ bulk. We will discuss the MIT of $VO_2$ films, comparing with the local structural properties determined by XAFS measurements.