Atomic layer deposition of vanadium oxide thin films from tetrakis(dimethylamino)vanadium precursor

Atomic layer deposition (ALD) of vanadium oxide (VOx) thin films, using tetrakis(dimethylamino)vanadium as the vanadium precursor, is comprehensively reported in this work. The vanadium precursor is highly volatile and can be used at room temperature for deposition. Either H2O or O3can be used as the coreactant for depositing VOxat 50–200 °C. However, partial precursor decomposition is suggested for the deposition temperature higher than 160 °C. The as-deposited VOxfilms are pure, smooth, and amorphous, and can be crystallized into monoclinic VO2phase by postdeposition annealing under N2ambient. The minimum annealing temperature for film to crystallize is found, by in situ high-temperature X-ray diffraction experiments, at around 550–600 °C. In situ quartz crystal microbalance experiments are performed to further analyze the surface reaction mechanism involved in this ALD process.