Regulation of the phase transition temperature of VO₂ thin films deposited by reactive magnetron sputtering without doping

Thin films of phase pure VO₂(M) were fabricated on quartz glass by reactive magnetron sputtering. Structural, morphological, electrical and optical properties of the prepared samples were characterized. Interestingly, it was found that the phase transition temperature can be regulated to a large scale from 46 °C to 72 °C only by precisely controlling the oxygen partial pressure without any element doping. It was assumed that changes in the amount of free electrons and internal strain introduced by the tiny change in the oxygen-to-vanadium ratio contributed to the significantly regulated phase transition behavior.