Impact of ion irradiation, elemental doping and coating cycles on structural characteristic parameters of nanocrystalline VO2 thin films

• Published in: Micro & nano letters Vol. 15; no. 3; pp. 198 - 202
• Main Author: Khan, G.R
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Stevenage The Institution of Engineering and Technology 04.03.2020; John Wiley & Sons, Inc
• Subjects: alumina substrates; Aluminum oxide; crystallites; diverse models; Doping; elemental doping; Glass substrates; Heavy ions; intriguing phenomenon; ion beam effects; Ion beams; ion doping; Ion irradiation; nanocrystalline VO2 thin films; nanocrystallites; Nanocrystals; nanostructured materials; Parameters; Phase transitions; Sol-gel processes; solid‐state phase transformations; sol‐gel processing; sol‐gel technique; Spin coating; spin coating cycles; structural characteristic parameters; structural phase transition; structural properties; swift heavy ion irradiation; Thin films; vanadium compounds; Vanadium dioxide; Vanadium oxides; VO2; XRD spectra; X‐ray diffraction; X‐ray diffractometry; sol–gel technique; ion beam effects; X-ray diffraction; structural phase transition; solid-state phase transformations; spin coating; spin coating cycles; VO2; vanadium dioxide; ion doping; nanocrystallites; vanadium compounds; diverse models; glass substrates; elemental doping; alumina substrates; structural characteristic parameters; sol-gel processing; thin films; nanostructured materials; intriguing phenomenon; structural properties; XRD spectra; X-ray diffractometry; swift heavy ion irradiation; nanocrystalline VO2 thin films; crystallites
• ISSN: 1750-0443; 1750-0443
• DOI: 10.1049/mnl.2019.0186

The origin of the structural phase transition in vanadium dioxide (VO2) has been the subject of immense disagreement in spite of decades of research carried out to comprehend this intriguing phenomenon. Diverse models have been developed to elucidate the obscure theory in order to corroborate assorted experimental results. Herein, the influence of swift heavy ion irradiation, elemental doping and coating cycles on the structural properties of thin films synthesised by sol–gel technique and deposited by spin coater on alumina and glass substrates is investigated. The thin films were characterised by X-ray diffractometry and the XRD spectra obtained at 1E11, 5E11, 1E12 ion beam fluances of 200 MeV Ag9+-ion irradiation; at 1, 3, 5% of Mo6+-ion doping and at different spin coating cycles were analysed to probe the influence of these effects on the structural characteristic parameters of nanocrystallites in VO2 thin films. This aspect of VO2 thin films has not been investigated to its full capacity and consequently, not reported in the scientific literature.