Tunable Electrical Properties of Vanadium Oxide by Hydrogen-Plasma-Treated Atomic Layer Deposition

In this study, a plasma-modified process was developed to control the electrical properties of atomic layer deposition (ALD)-grown vanadium dioxide (VO2), which is potentially useful for applications such as resistive switching devices, bolometers, and plasmonic metamaterials. By inserting a plasma pulse with varying H2 gas flow into each ALD cycle, the insulator-to-metal transition (IMT) temperature of postdeposition-annealed crystalline VO2 films was adjusted from 63 to 78 °C. Film analyses indicate that the tunability may arise from changes in grain boundaries, morphology, and compositional variation despite hydrogen not remaining in the annealed VO2 films. This growth method, which enables a systematic variation of the electronic behavior of VO2, provides capabilities beyond those of the conventional thermal ALD and plasma-enhanced ALD.