Vanadium dioxide thin films have been fabricated through sputtering vanadium thin films and rapid thermal annealing in oxygen. The microstructure and the metal-insulator transition properties of the vanadium dioxide thin films were inves- tigated by X-ray diffraction, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and a spectrometer. It is found that the preferred orientation of the vanadium dioxide changes from （111） to （011 ） with increasing thickness of the vanadium thin film after rapid thermal annealing. The vanadium dioxide thin films exhibit an obvious metal-insulator transition with increasing temperature, and the phase transition temperature decreases as the film thickness increases. The transition shows hysteretic behaviors, and the hysteresis width decreases as the film thickness increases due to the higher concentration carriers resulted from the uncompleted lattice. The fabrication of vanadium dioxide thin films with higher concentration carriers will facilitate the nature study of the metal-insulator transition.
The VO2 thin film with high performance of metal-insulator transition （MIT） is prepared on R-sapphire substrate for the first time by magnetron sputtering with rapid thermal process （RTP）. The electrical characteristic and THz transmittance of MIT in VO2 film are studied by four-point probe method and THz time domain spectrum （THz-TDS）. X-ray diffraction （XRD）, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy （XPS）, atomic force microscopy （AFM）, and search engine marketing （SEM） are employed to analyze the crystalline structure, valence state, surface morphology of the film. Results indicate that the properties of VO2 film which is oxidized from the metal vanadium film in oxygen atmosphere are improved with a follow- up RTP modification in nitrogen atmosphere. The crystallization and components of VO2 film are improved and the film becomes compact and uniform. A better phase transition performance is shown that the resistance changes nearly 3 orders of magnitude with a 2-~C hysteresis width and the THz transmittances are reduced by 64% and 60% in thermal and optical excitation respectively.
We demonstrate the polarization of resistive switching for a Cu/VOx/Cu memory cell.The switching behaviors of Cu/VOx/Cu cell are tested by using a semiconductor device analyzer（Agilent B1500A）,and the relative micro-analysis of I-V characteristics of VOx/Cu is characterized by using a conductive atomic force microscope（CAFM）.The I-V test results indicate that both the forming and the reversible resistive switching between low resistance state（LRS） and high resistance state（HRS） can be observed under either positive or negative sweep.The CAFM images for LRS and HRS directly exhibit evidence for the formation and rupture of filaments based on positive or negative voltage.The Cu/VOx/Cu sandwiched structure exhibits reversible resistive switching behavior and shows potential applications in the next generation of nonvolatile memory.
