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Structural phase transition assisted micromechanical actuation of a vanadium dioxide (VO2) coated silicon microcantilever is presented. A 300 nm polycrystalline VO2 film was deposited over the silicon surface at 520 °C using metal organic chemical vapor deposition. The formation of the M1 monoclinic phase of the as-deposited VO2 film was confirmed by X-ray diffraction studies and further verified by temperature variable Raman spectroscopy. The heated VO2 film exhibits semiconductor-to-metal transition at 74 °C, which produces a change in the electrical resistance almost of three orders in magnitude. Consequently, the VO2 film undergoes structural phase transition from the monoclinic phase (011)M1 to a tetragonal phase (110)R. This generates a compressive stress within the VO2 film resulting in large, reversible cantilever deflection. This deflection was measured with a non-contact 3D optical profilometer, which does not require any vacuum conditions. Upon heating, the VO2 coated silicon cantilever produced a large reversible tip deflection of 14 μm at 50 °C. Several heating and cooling cycles indicate steep changes in the cantilever tip deflection with negligible hysteresis. In addition, the effect of thermal stress induced cantilever deflection was estimated to be as small as 6.4%, and hence can be ignored. These results were found to be repeatable within controlled experimental conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Vanadium dioxide (VO 2) is deposited on glass slides by Chemical Vapor Deposition. • Structural characterization revealed the presence of phase pure monoclinic VO 2. • Electrical measurements of the as-deposited VO 2 did not show a sharp transition. • Surface analysis showed Vanadium in V3+, V4+ and V5+ states in as-deposited films. • Annealing the films enhanced the transition strength. In this work, VO 2 is deposited on borosilicate glass substrates via a single step Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD). Though the structural characterization revealed the presence of phase pure polycrystalline VO 2 in simple monoclinic crystal structure (P2 1 /c), electrical measurements did not show a sharp transition. To understand the ambiguity, surface characterization was performed with X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS) on the as-deposited VO 2 thin films. Vanadium was present in V3+, V4+ and V5+ states. Following these measurements, annealing was performed in ambience at 200 °C for 10 minutes. Subsequent electrical measurements showed an improved phase transition, enhanced by an order of magnitude. We attribute the enhancement in transition to annealing of oxygen vacancies present in VO 2 thin films because of the deposition conditions. Decrease in oxygen vacancies was correlated with a decrease in the fraction of V3+ from XPS measurements. The sample annealed at 200°C for 10 minutes exhibited a higher resistance ratio (ΔA = 305) with an optimum hysteresis (4°C) and transition width(12°C), whereas the as-deposited sample exhibited a resistance ratio of ΔA = 32. The thermal treatment affected the characteristics of the transition. A narrow hysteresis of 4°C and a sharp transition width with a reasonable resistance ratio were obtained for the sample annealed at 200°C for 10 minutes. From this study, we understand that our synthesis of VO 2 thin films via CVD is prone to be off-stoichiometric and therefore, contains defects such as oxygen vacancies. We could mitigate the effect of these vacancies and engineer the stoichiometry by performing a simple annealing which in turn improved the strength of the phase transition. Drawbacks such as a poor-quality transition, resulting from synthesis parameters can be mitigated if we understand the effect of vanadium and oxygen vacancies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]