Study on the preparation of vanadium oxide thin films by the metal-oxygenation method

Vanadium thin films were deposited on silicon nitride substrates by direct current facing targets magnetron sputtering, and then were annealed in room air ambient to form the vanadium oxide(VO x ) thin films. The VO x thin films made by this way have high TCR(Temperature Coefficient of Resistance) near room temperature. Compared with reactive sputtering [1,2] , the metal-oxygenation method needs fewer preparative parameters which are very easy to control. The main target of this paper is to study the electrical property of the VO x thin films, especially the relationship between the TCR of VO x thin films and their preparative parameters. Orthogonal experiment was used to choose optimal preparative parameters, which include sputtering pressure, sputtering time, annealing time and annealing temperature. Then the resistance-temperature property was measured, and the results show that the VO x thin film which was prepared after sputtered at 1.5 Pa for 20 minutes at room temperature and annealed at 400°C for 1.5h has the best resistance-temperature property. And near room temperature, its TCR is -3.25%/K, which is twice as much as that of metal material. And the VO x thin film has potential application in uncooled infrared microbolometer [3~5] .