Electrical characteristics of V2O5 thin films formed on p-Si by sputter-deposition and rapid thermal annealing

We report on the formation of V2O5 semiconductor thin films using rapid thermal annealing (RTA) on sputter-deposited amorphous VOx. DC magnetron sputtering was used to obtain an initial amorphous VOx film on p-Si substrate, followed by O2- and N2-RTA at two different temperatures of 400 and 500 8C for 3 min. According to X-ray diffraction results, O2-RTA is more effective to achieve the semiconducting phase, V2O5 than N2-RTA, which caused some electrically conducting phases such as V4O9 or V6O13 at 400 8C. Electrical characterization on Au/vanadium oxide/p-Si structure exhibited ohmic-like behavior when the thin film mainly contains those metallic phases while the structures were strongly rectifying once the film consists of the semiconducting phase, V2O5.