

February 8, 2013 in Physics / Condensed Matter
Figure 1:Below 47 °C, the vanadium ions in a film of VO2 pair up into a different crystal structure and the electrons no longer conduct freely. The transition can be reversed with a positive voltage, applied at the top of the film. The voltage induces electrons to move to the region near the surface, which restores the high-temperature structure and metallic behavior throughout the entire film. © 2012 Nature Publishing Group


Now, Masaki Nakano and colleagues at the RIKEN Advanced Science Institute in Wako have discovered that applying a voltage to a vanadium dioxide (VO2) film several tens of nanometers thick converts the entire film from an insulator to a metal. The findings point to the specific material properties needed to make such devices work. They may also lead to new types of 'smart' technology.

The of can be tuned by changing their or temperature. For example, VO2 is an insulator at room temperature, but heating it or replacing a small fraction of the vanadium atoms with tungsten (an ) causes a phase transition where the vanadium ions, which are paired up at low temperature, unfasten into a different crystal structure in which electrons are mobile. In principle, applying a positive voltage to the surface of an insulating VO2 film can accomplish the same effect by inducing electrons to the surface, making this region metallic.

Researchers have assumed that this charging effect would be limited to a few just below the surface because the excess of electrons cancels out the applied electric field (an effect called screening). But Nakano and his colleagues found that the excess electrons were enough to 'trigger' the change associated with metallic behavior (Fig. 1). "The surface lattice distortion propagates through the entire film, followed by an electronic phase transition inside the bulk region," he says. The voltage-induced transition decreases VO2's resistance by a factor of 100.

The team is actively seeking other materials like VO2, as well as technological applications. One is a heat switch. Since temperature determines if VO2 is a metal or an insulator, it also determines the frequency of light the material absorbs. VO2-coated glass could therefore act as a 'smart window', passing or blocking infrared light depending on the temperature outside. "Normally, this switching temperature is fixed," says Nakano. "Our device adds electrical switching functionality to a smart window, which is very promising for energy-saving applications."

More information: 1.Nakano, M., Shibuya, K., Okuyama, D., Hatano, T., Ono, S., Kawasaki, M., Iwasa, Y. & Tokura, Y. Collective bulk carrier delocalization driven by electrostatic surface charge accumulation. Nature 487, 459–462 (2012). www.nature.com/nature/journal/v487/n7408/abs/nature11296.html

Provided by RIKEN

"Transistor made from vanadium dioxide could function as smart window for blocking infrared light" February 8, 2013 http://phys.org/news/2013-02-transistor-vanadium-dioxide-function-smart.html