Spectroscopic ellipsometry investigation of V2O5 nanocrystalline thin films

Abstract In this paper, a spectroscopic ellipsometry (SE) study was carried out on V 2 O 5 nanocrystalline thin films grown by plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition. Both the real and imaginary part of the complex dielectric function and, hence, the refractive index and absorption coefficients, were described up to a photon energy of 5 eV, taking into account the anisotropy of vanadium pentoxide and the influence of the films microstructure on the optical properties. A novel approach based on a suitable combination of Lorentzian oscillators was used to describe the V 2 O 5 optical properties. The effect of experimental parameters, such as deposition temperature and substrate, on the film microstructure and optical properties was investigated.