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Updated: May 14, 2026

Atomic Layer Deposition of Vanadium Dioxide and a Temperature-dependent Optical Model
Published on: May 23, 2018
Role of thermal heating on the voltage induced insulator-metal transition in VO2
A Zimmers1, L Aigouy, M Mortier
1Laboratoire de Physique et d'Etude des Matériaux, UMR 8213, ESPCI-ParisTech-CNRS-UPMC, 10 rue Vauquelin, 75231 Paris, France. alexandre.zimmers@espci.fr
Abstract:
We show that the main mechanism for the dc voltage or dc current induced insulator-metal transition in vanadium dioxide VO(2) is due to local Joule heating and not a purely electronic effect. This "tour de force" experiment was accomplished by using the fluorescence spectra of rare-earth doped micron sized particles as local temperature sensors. As the insulator-metal transition is induced by a dc voltage or dc current, the local temperature reaches the transition temperature indicating that Joule heating plays a predominant role. This has critical implications for the understanding of the dc voltage or dc current induced insulator-metal transition and has a direct impact on applications which use dc voltage or dc current to externally drive the transition.
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