The aim of this work was to study the effect of the gas composition during sputtering on the electrophysical properties of vanadium oxide films deposited by pulsed reactive magnetron sputtering of a vanadium target in an Ar/O2 medium of working gases.The dependences of the magnetron discharge voltage, deposition rate, resistivity, temperature coefficient of resistance (TCR), and the band gap of vanadium oxide films on the oxygen concentration in the gas mixture are obtained. It was found that amorphous films of vanadium oxide are formed during reactive magnetron sputtering. It is shown that the properties of the deposited vanadium oxide films have a strong dependence on the oxygen concentration in the Ar/O2 gas mixture, which is associated with the formation of a mixture of various intermediate vanadium oxides in the film. It was found that from the point of view of using vanadium oxide films as thermosensitive layers of microbolometers, the films must be deposited at oxygen concentrations in the gas mixture of 17 to 25 %. At the given oxygen concentrations without heating the substrates, vanadium oxide films with a resistivity (0.6–4.0)·10-2 Ohm·m, TCR 2.2–2.3%/°C and a band gap for direct transitions of 3.7–3.78 eV. The obtained characteristics make it possible to use these films as thermosensitive layers of microbolometers.
Thermochromic properties of vanadium oxide films prepared by dc reactive magnetron sputtering
