Study on switching performance of VOx thin film in THz band

Vanadium oxide(VO_x) is one kind of mixture with different valences, and in addition to vanadium dioxide(VO₂), the optical properties of other vanadium oxidations with different valences get few attention. In the present study, VO_x thin film was grown on silicon substrates by direct current facing targets magnetron sputtering. VO_x thin film was characterized by XPS (X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy) to determine component, and by THz-TDS (THz Time-domain spectroscopy system) to determine optical transmission behavior in the 0.3~2.5THz with the exciting laser of 532nm. The results show that, the main valences of VO_x thin film are +3,+4,+5, before and after continuous light excitation, a very significant change in THz transmission is observed. The optical transmission of VO_x thin film decreases by 60% after excitation. And finally, we briefly analyzed the switching performance with the energy band structure of VO_x.