Substrate plays an important role in the microstructure and switching performance of the thermochromic VO₂ films. In this paper, natural orientated muscovite (001) slices were used as the substrate for deposition of the vanadium dioxide films. Muscovite has layer aluminum silicate structure linked by electrostatic force of potassium ions, so it is easily cleaved to expose the (001) cleavage plane as surface. Muscovite is cheap, readily available in large sheets which may be cleaved to very thin and flexible plates and suitable for applications in optical and electrical devices.

The vanadium oxide films were fabricated on a muscovite (001) cleavage plane by aqueous sol-gel method, and then were crystallized and reduced to vanadium dioxide films by annealing in static N₂ atmosphere. The surface XPS analysis demonstrated the obtained films were stoichiometric vanadium dioxide. The AFM morphology picture indicated the vanadium dioxide film was composed of grains in nano scale (30nm~50nm). The X-Ray patterns of the films have the unique diffraction peak of monoclinic VO₂ (011) plane. It indicated that the films were (011) orientated on muscovite (001) plane, conforming a monoclinic VO₂ (011)∥muscovite (001) structure at room temperature. When heating temperature increased to above the metal-to-isolator phase transition temperature (T_c) of VO₂，structural phase transition (SPT) from monoclinic (011) to tetragonal (110) was detected by using X-Ray diffraction with an in-situ heating. The electrical and optical properties of the thermochromic VO₂ films on muscovite (001) were also investigated below and above T_c, it exhibited changes in electrical resistivity more than three orders of magnitude and optic transmittance switching more than 70 percent in the range of wavenumber 4000 cm^-1-1000cm^-1.

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