Stability of the M2 Phase of Vanadium Dioxide Induced by Coherent Epitaxial Strain

Author

N. F. Quackenbush
Yijia Gu, Missouri University of Science and TechnologyFollow
For full list of authors, see publisher's website.

Abstract

Tensile strain along the cR axis in epitaxial VO₂ films raises the temperature of the metal insulator transition and is expected to stabilize the intermediate monoclinic M2 phase. We employ surface-sensitive x-ray spectroscopy to distinguish from the TiO₂ substrate and identify the phases of VO₂ as a function of temperature in epitaxial VO₂/TiO₂ thin films with well-defined biaxial strain. Although qualitatively similar to our Landau-Ginzburg theory predicted phase diagrams, the M2 phase is stabilized by nearly an order of magnitude more strain than expected for the measured temperature window. Our results reveal that the elongation of the c_R axis is insufficient for describing the transition pathway of VO₂ epitaxial films and that a strain induced increase of electron correlation effects must be considered.

Recommended Citation

N. F. Quackenbush et al., "Stability of the M2 Phase of Vanadium Dioxide Induced by Coherent Epitaxial Strain," Physical Review B, vol. 94, no. 8, American Physical Society (APS), Aug 2016.

The definitive version is available at https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.94.085105

Department(s)

Materials Science and Engineering

International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)

2469-9950; 2469-9969

Document Type

Article - Journal

Document Version

Final Version

File Type

text

Language(s)

English

Rights

© 2016 American Physical Society (APS), All rights reserved.

Publication Date

01 Aug 2016