Impact of annealing condition on the stability and optical property of vanadium oxide thin films

A two-step method was used to fabricate vanadium oxide (VO_X) thin films. SEM and IR transmittance spectra were employed to reveal the cross-section morphology and optical property, respectively. The surface composition was obtained using XPS. Experimental results indicated that the VO_X film was stable until the grains and insulator-metal transition showed up on increasing annealing pressure or prolonging annealing time. The depositing conditions corresponding to the unstable film can be considered as the critical point of preparing suitable thermal sensitive layers that fulfill both stability and higher mid-wave IR absorption.