Sunlight-induced resistance changes and their effects on the semiconductor–metal transition behavior of VO2 film

High-quality VO2 films with precisely controlled thicknesses were grown on sapphire substrates by plasma-assisted oxide molecular beam epitaxy (MBE). To evaluate the degradation of semiconductor–metal transition (SMT) behavior of VO2 films under solar radiation, the temperature-driven SMT was investigated by measuring the electrical resistance during heating and cooling processes under solar simulator AM1.5, which provided illumination approximately matching the natural sunlight. The distinct reversible SMTs were observed for all the samples, whereas a remarkably conflicting trend in resistance change for extremely thin and thick samples was observed after exposure to the sunlight soaking system. The corresponding mechanism was proposed based on sunlight-induced resistance changes due to the transformation in the electron correlation and structural symmetry. The results might be especially attractive for some specific applications of VO2 films where solar radiation was inevitable.