Targeted synthesis of polycrystalline vanadium dioxide thin films via post-deposition annealing

TL;DR

This paper introduces a room-temperature, reactive pulsed laser deposition method for synthesizing polycrystalline vanadium dioxide thin films, facilitating easier integration into neuromorphic hardware and CMOS processes.

Contribution

The authors develop a novel VO₂ synthesis technique using reactive pulsed laser deposition at room temperature with oxygen tuning, enabling CMOS-compatible fabrication.

Findings

Successful synthesis of VO₂ thin films at room temperature.

Controlled oxygen pressure allows phase targeting.

Potential for large-scale neuromorphic hardware integration.

Abstract

Implementation of neuromorphic hardware is a promising way to improve the computing efficiency and decrease the energy consumption of artificial neural networks. For this purpose, electronic elements emulating the behavior of synapses and neurons have to be developed. In order to realize electronic artificial neurons, threshold resistive switches or memristors can be efficiently used. One of the most widespread materials for threshold switches is vanadium dioxide due to its property to demonstrate the metal-insulator transition at a temperature about 70 {\deg}C. However, the processes of VO$_{2}$ synthesis are quite restrictive in temperature and gas atmosphere conditions, which hinders its integration into CMOS fabrication. In this work, we propose a new method of VO$_{2}$ synthesis: reactive pulsed laser deposition from metallic V target in oxygen atmosphere at room temperature, followed by vacuum annealing. Our method enables target synthesis of an appropriate VO$_{2}$ phase in a polycrystalline thin film form by finely tuning oxygen pressure during room temperature deposition, which allows to relax the equipment demands, such as high temperature heating in oxygen. Successful targeted VO$_{2}$ synthesis under fabrication conditions close to back-end-of-line CMOS production, achieved in this work, show the way toward its large-scale microelectronic integration for neuromorphic hardware creation.