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New aspects of the metal–insulator transition in single-domain vanadium dioxide nanobeams

Abstract

Many strongly correlated electronic materials have a domain structure that greatly influences the bulk properties and obscures the fundamental properties of the homogeneous material. Nanoscale samples, on the other hand, can be smaller than the characteristic domain size, thus making it possible to explore these fundamental properties in detail. Here, we report new aspects of the metal–insulator transition1,2,3, studied in single-domain vanadium dioxide nanobeams4,5,6. We have observed supercooling of the metallic phase by 50 °C, an activation energy in the insulating phase that is consistent with the optical gap, and a connection between the metal–insulator transition and the equilibrium carrier density in the insulating phase. Our devices also provide a nanomechanical method for determining the transition temperature, enable measurements on individual metal–insulator interphase walls to be made, and allow general investigations of phase transitions in quasi-one-dimensional geometries.

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Figure 1: Metal–insulator transition in VO2 nanobeams studied by microscopy.
Figure 2: Electrical resistance versus temperature.
Figure 3: Collected resistivity measurements for ten nanobeams of various dimensions.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Anton Andreev, Marcel den Nijs, Patti Metcalf, Jungho Son, Boris Spivak, David Thouless, Oscar Vilches and Younan Xia for discussions, Volker Eyert and Hyun-tak Kim for comments on the manuscript, and Jacob Beedle, Megan Campbell and Conor Sayres for experimental assistance. This work was supported by the Army Research Office under contract no. 48385-PH, and used facilities in the UW Nanotech Center. W.C. and Z.W. were partially supported by UW UIF Nanotech fellowships.

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J.W. performed the experiments with assistance from Z.W., W.C. and D.H.C. D.H.C. guided the work and did the majority of the analysis and writing.

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Correspondence to David H. Cobden.

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Wei, J., Wang, Z., Chen, W. et al. New aspects of the metal–insulator transition in single-domain vanadium dioxide nanobeams. Nature Nanotech 4, 420–424 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2009.141

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