Thermodynamics of strained vanadium dioxide single crystals

Vanadium dioxide undergoes a metal-insulator transition, in which the strain condition plays an important role. To investigate the strain contribution, a phenomenological thermodynamic potential for the vanadium dioxide single crystal was constructed. The transformations under the uniaxial stress, wire, and thin film boundary conditions were analyzed, and the corresponding phase diagrams were constructed. The calculated phase diagrams agree well with existing experimental data, and show that the transformation temperature (and Curie temperature) strongly depends on the strain condition. (C) 2010 American Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3499349]