Surface morphology-optical properties relationship in thermochromic VO2 thin films obtained by air oxidation of vanadium nitride

In this paper, vanadium nitride (VN) thin films have been deposited on Al substrates by reactive magnetron sputtering. Thermochromic VO2 films have been obtained by air oxidation of VN samples performed at three temperatures (450, 525 and 550 °C) at various durations (lower than 50 min). X-ray diffraction and Raman spectrometry of the VN oxidized films indicate that VO2 and V2O5 are the only phases produced during the oxidation process. Vanadium...