Nanocrystalline vanadium oxide films synthesized by plasma-assisted reactive rf sputtering deposition

Plasma-assisted reactive rf magnetron sputtering deposition is used to fabricate vanadium oxide films on glass, silica and silicon substrates. The process conditions are optimized to synthesize phase-pure vanadium pentoxide (V 2 O 5 ) featuring a nanocrystalline structure with the predominant (0 0 1) crystallographic orientation, surface morphology with rod-like nanosized grains and very uniform (the non-uniformity does not exceed 4%) coating thickness over large surface areas. The V 2 O 5 films also show excellent and temperature-independent optical transmittance in a broad temperature range (20–95 °C). The results are relevant to the development of smart functional coatings with temperature-tunable properties.