Observation of electric field-assisted phase transition in thin film vanadium oxide in a metal-oxide-semiconductor device geometry

We report the observation of electric field-assisted phase transition across a vanadium oxide thin film. The threshold field for initiation of transition was ∼107 V/m at room temperature and decreased with increasing temperature with activation energy of ∼0.2 eV. Electron transport mechanisms were investigated using both current-in-plane and out-of-plane devices and the results correlated very well. In the insulator phase, Poole–Frenkel emission was determined to be a dominant mechanism at high fields, while in the low field regime, Ohmic behavior with activation energy of ∼0.24 eV was observed. In the metallic state, activation energy for Ohmic conduction was ∼0.08 eV.

[1]  R. Waser,et al.  Electrode influence on the charge transport through SrTiO3 thin films , 1995 .

[2]  Byung-Gyu Chae,et al.  Abrupt metal–insulator transition observed in VO2 thin films induced by a switching voltage pulse , 2005 .

[3]  Sylvain Fourmaux,et al.  Grain size effect on the semiconductor-metal phase transition characteristics of magnetron-sputtered VO2 thin films , 2005 .

[4]  Fritz Keilmann,et al.  Dynamic tuning of an infrared hybrid-metamaterial resonance using vanadium dioxide , 2008 .

[5]  Changhong Chen,et al.  Optical phonons assisted infrared absorption in VO2 based bolometer , 2007 .

[6]  Alexander Pergament,et al.  The effect of electric field on metal-insulator phase transition in vanadium dioxide , 2002 .

[7]  John B. Goodenough,et al.  The two components of the crystallographic transition in VO2 , 1971 .

[8]  D. N. Basov,et al.  Electrodynamics of the vanadium oxides VO2 and V2O3 , 2008, 0803.2739.

[9]  Shriram Ramanathan,et al.  Structure-functional property relationships in rf-sputtered vanadium dioxide thin films , 2007 .

[10]  Young-soo Park,et al.  Two Series Oxide Resistors Applicable to High Speed and High Density Nonvolatile Memory , 2007 .

[11]  S. Ramanathan,et al.  Stability of electrical switching properties in vanadium dioxide thin films under multiple thermal cycles across the phase transition boundary , 2008 .

[12]  Byung-Gyu Chae,et al.  Mott Transition in VO2 Revealed by Infrared Spectroscopy and Nano-Imaging , 2007, Science.

[13]  Ivan K Schuller,et al.  Multiple avalanches across the metal-insulator transition of vanadium oxide nanoscaled junctions. , 2008, Physical review letters.

[14]  Joyeeta Nag,et al.  Synthesis of vanadium dioxide thin films and nanoparticles , 2008 .

[15]  Byung-Gyu Chae,et al.  Monoclinic and correlated metal phase in VO(2) as evidence of the Mott transition: coherent phonon analysis. , 2006, Physical review letters.

[16]  Albert Rose,et al.  Space-Charge-Limited Currents in Solids , 1955 .