Correlation between in situ structural and optical characterization of the semiconductor-to-metal phase transition of VO2 thin films on sapphire

A detailed structural investigation of the semiconductor-to-metal transition (SMT) in vanadium dioxide thin films deposited on sapphire substrates by pulsed laser deposition was performed by in situ temperature-dependent X-ray diffraction (XRD) measurements. The structural results are correlated with those of infrared radiometry measurements in the SWIR (2.5-5 μm) and LWIR (8-10.6 μm) spectral ranges. The main results indicate a good agreement between XRD and optical analysis, therefore demonstrating that the structural transition from monoclinic to tetragonal phases is the dominating mechanism for controlling the global properties of the SMT transition. The picture that emerges is a SMT tr…