Anodic oxidation of vanadium and properties of vanadium oxide films

Abstract

Thin films of amorphous vanadium oxide have been prepared by electrochemical anodic oxidation. The phase composition of anodic films on vanadium has been shown to depend on the oxidation conditions (electrolyte composition, oxidation current, and time), and the stoichiometry can be controlled from VO2: to V2O5. Physical properties of the oxide films, including the metal-insulator transition in amorphous VO2, are studied. In addition, it is shown that non-equilibrium electrochemical oxidation leads to the formation of metastable vanadium oxides with extremely high sensitivity to laser (∼1 mJ cm -2) and electron-beam (∼10 μC cm-2) irradiation. Such films are of considerable technical interest, particularly because of potential applications as an efficient resist material for both photonanolithography and electron-beam nanolithography.