Structural characterisation of ultra-thin VOx films on TiO2(1 1 0)

The normal incidence X-ray standing wave (NIXSW) technique has been applied to investigate the structure of ultra-thin VOx films grown on TiO2(1 1 0) and pre-characterised by core level photoemission. For a film composed of a sub-monolayer coverage of V deposited in ultra-high vacuum the local structure of two coexistent species, labelled ‘oxidic’ and ‘metallic’, has been investigated independently through the use of chemical-shift-NIXSW. The ‘oxidic’ state is shown to be consistent with a mixture of epitaxial or substitutional sites and chemisorption into sites coordinated to three surface O atoms. The metallic V atoms also involve a mixture of chemisorption and second-layer sites above the substrate surface consistent with the formation of small V clusters. VOx films up to ∼6 atomic layers were also grown by post-oxidation (sequential V deposition and annealing in oxygen) and by reactive evaporation in a partial pressure of oxygen. While films of around one monolayer or less are consistent with epitaxial VO2 growth, the film quality deteriorates rapidly with increasing thickness and is worse for reactive evaporation. A possible interpretation of the NIXSW data is increasing contributions of V2O3 crystallites. The inferior quality of the reactively evaporated films may be due to an insufficient supply of oxygen.