Formation of Vanadium Oxide Thin Films Prepared from Aqueous Sol-Gel System

Vanadium oxide thin films are promising materials for various applications. Much attention has been devoted to thermotropic VO2(M/R) films which exhibit semiconductor-conductor phase transition at 67 °C making them excellent materials for switching applications. Non-thermotropic VO2(B) films are semiconducting and have layered structure which makes them interesting for gas sensing applications. Vanadium pentoxide films are also of great interest for photocatalytic production of H2by H2O decomposition as well as for gas sensing. In this paper the preparation of vanadium oxide thin films by using the spin coating of V2O5·nH2O aqueous gel on Si/SiO2and lime-glass substrates is reported. The as-deposited films were annealed in either air or H2/Ar atmosphere at normal or low pressure in order to prepare V2O5and VO2thin films. The obtained samples were characterized by XRD and SEM.