Self-Pixelation Through Fracture in VO2 Thin Films
Vanadium dioxide (VO2) is an archetypal Mott material with a metal–insulator transition (MIT) at near room temperature. In thin films, this transition is affected by substrate-induced strain but as film thickness increases, the strain is gradually relaxed and the bulk properties are recovered. Epita...
| Autores: | , , , , , , , |
|---|---|
| Tipo de recurso: | artículo |
| Estado: | Versión aceptada para publicación |
| Fecha de publicación: | 2020 |
| País: | España |
| Institución: | Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC) |
| Repositorio: | DIGITAL.CSIC. Repositorio Institucional del CSIC |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:digital.csic.es:10261/231250 |
| Acceso en línea: | http://hdl.handle.net/10261/231250 |
| Access Level: | acceso abierto |
| Palabra clave: | Metal−insulator transition Thin films Vanadium dioxide Cracks Pixelation Scanning Kelvin probe microscopy |
| Sumario: | Vanadium dioxide (VO2) is an archetypal Mott material with a metal–insulator transition (MIT) at near room temperature. In thin films, this transition is affected by substrate-induced strain but as film thickness increases, the strain is gradually relaxed and the bulk properties are recovered. Epitaxial films of VO2 on (001)-oriented rutile titanium dioxide (TiO2) relax substrate strain by forming a network of fracture lines that crisscross the film along well-defined crystallographic directions. This work shows that the electronic properties associated with these lines result in a pattern that resembles a “street map” of fully strained metallic VO2 blocks separated by insulating VO2 stripes. Each block of VO2 is thus electronically self-insulated from its neighbors, and its MIT can be locally induced optically with a laser, or electronically via the tip of a scanning probe microscope so that the films behave functionally as self-patterned pixel arrays. |
|---|