Nanoscale mapping of temperature-dependent conduction in an epitaxial VO₂ film grown on an Al₂O₃ substrate.

ABSTRACT: Vanadium dioxide (VO₂) is one of the extensively studied strongly correlated oxides due to its intriguing insulator-metal transition near room temperature. In this work, we investigated temperature-dependent nanoscale conduction in an epitaxial VO₂ film grown on an Al₂O₃ substrate using conductive-atomic force microscopy (C-AFM). We observed that only the regions near the grain boundaries are conductive, producing intriguing donut patterns in C-AFM images. Such donut patterns were observed in the entire measured temperature range (300-355 K). The current values near the grain boundaries increased by approximately two orders of magnitude with an increase in the temperature, which is consistent with the macroscopic transport data. The spatially-var

SUBMITTER: Kim A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9379556 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature