Stability of electrical switching properties in vanadium dioxide thin films under multiple thermal cycles across the phase transition boundary

The influence of successive thermally induced metal-insulator transition (MIT) on electrical transition characteristics in high quality vanadium dioxide (VO2) thin films synthesized by reactive sputtering was investigated in conjunction with structural studies. We show that the transition quality of VO2 thin films was largely unaffected up to similar to 100 heating-cooling cycles with respect to hysteresis width, resistivity ratio, and MIT onset temperature. The hysteresis width decreased by similar to 3% along with an enhancement in film texture, while no reduction in resistivity ratio or MIT temperature was observed, implying that the stoichiometry of overall VO2 thin film did not degrade under multiple thermally induced transitions. The results are of potential relevance to solid state sensing elements utilizing vanadium oxide. (C) 2008 American Institute of Physics. [DOI:10.1063/1.3000664]