Large epitaxial bi-axial strain induces a Mott-like phase transition in VO2

Abstract

The metal insulator transition (MIT) in VO2 has been an important topic for recent years. It has been generally agreed that the mechanism of the MIT in bulk VO2 is considered to be a collaborative Mott-Peierls transition, however the effect of the strain on the phase transition is much more complicated. In this study the effect of the large strain on the properties of VO2 films was investigated. One remarkable result is that highly strained epitaxial VO2 thin films were rutile in the insulating state as well as in the metallic state. These highly strained VO2 films underwent an electronic phase transition without the concomitant Peierls transition. Our results also show that a very large tensile strain along the c-axis of rutile VO2 resulted in a phase transition temperature of ~ 433 K, much higher than in any previous report. Our findings elicit that the metal insulator transition in VO2 can be driven by an electronic transition alone, rather the typical coupled electronic-structural transition.

References in corpus (3)

• Large epitaxial bi-axial strain induces a Mott-like phase transition in VO2
• Photoemission evidence for crossover from Peierls-like to Mott-like transition in highly strained VO${}_2$
• Strain dependence of bonding and hybridization across the metal-insulator transition of VO2

Cited by in corpus (6)

• Large epitaxial bi-axial strain induces a Mott-like phase transition in VO2
• Direct observation of the M2 phase with its Mott transition in a VO${}_2$ film
• Massively strained VO2 thin film growth on RuO2
• Observation of weakened V-V dimers in the monoclinic metallic phase of strained VO2
• VO${}_2$ under hydrostatic pressure: Isostructural phase transition close to a critical end-point
• Small polarons mediated near-room-temperature metal-insulator transition in vanadium dioxide and their hopping dynamics