High-power impulse magnetron sputtering deposition of high crystallinity vanadium dioxide for thermochromic smart windows applications

Abstract Vanadium dioxide (VO2) is one of the most promising thermochromic materials for smart windows application because of its ability to modulate infrared radiation (IR) by reversibly transform from semiconductor-like monoclinic VO2 (M) to metallic rutile VO2 (R) above its transition temperature (τc). Despite the promising potential, VO2 has not been commercialized due to various technical difficulties which hinder its feasibilities outside of laboratories environment. One of those is the efficiency of high quality VO2 thin-film fabrication process. In this paper, we presented a method utilizing high-power impulse magnetron sputtering (HiPIMS) to deposit VO2 thin-film on a commercial material such as soda-lime glass substrate with a respectable deposition rate of 5.7 nm/min. The VO2 deposited on soda-lime glass exhibits excellent crystallinity and thermochromic properties (highest luminous transmission Tlum ≈ 30.4%, and solar modulation ΔTsol ≈ 12%) in comparison with similarly prepared VO2 on high temperature glass and quartz substrates. The high crystallinity rendered by short deposition duration and high ionization in HiPIMS process opens opportunities to apply high quality VO2 thin-film onto a variety of substrate more efficiently.