Dynamic phase coexistence and non-Gaussian resistance fluctuations in VO2 near the metal-insulator transition

We have carried out an extensive investigation on the resistance fluctuations (noise) in an epitaxial thin film of VO2 encompassing the metal-insulator transition (MIT) region to investigate the dynamic phase coexistence of metal and insulating phases. Both flicker noise as well as the Nyquist noise (thermal noise) were measured. The experiments showed that flicker noise, which has a 1/f spectral power dependence, evolves with temperature in the transition region following the evolution of the phase fractions and is governed by activated kinetics. Importantly, closer to the insulating end of the transition, when the metallic phase fraction is low, the magnitude of the noise shows an anomaly and a strong non-Gaussian component of noise develops. In this region, the local electron temperature (as measured through the Nyquist noise thermometry) shows a deviation from the equilibrium bath temperature. It is proposed that this behavior arises due to current crowding where a substantial amount of the current is carried through well separated small metallic islands leading to a dynamic correlated current path redistribution and an enhanced effective local current density. This leads to a non-Gaussian component to the resistance fluctuation and an associated local deviation of the electron temperature from the bath. Our experiment establishes that phase coexistence leads to a strong inhomogeneity in the region of MIT that makes the current transport strongly inhomogeneous and correlated.