Metallic VO2-x Nanobeam Implanted With an Insulating VO2 Segment Toward Artificial Electrical Modulation

Insulator-metal transition (IMT) in correlated vanadium oxides is among critical issues and has drawn significant attention in the communities of condensed matter physics, functional Mott materials and devices. It is always essential to understand and manipulate IMT behaviors in vanadium oxides toward advanced electronics and photonics. Selected-area chemical nanoengineering (SACNE) enables direct modulating of structural compositions and physical/chemical properties. Herein, the realization of an IMT in metallic VO2-x nanobeams through artificially implanting an insulating VO2 segment is described. Original temperature-dependent IMT behaviors are suppressed when insulating VO2 was reduced into metallic VO2-x. By exploiting an implanting nanoengineering, oxidation states and compositions to fabricate an insulating segment in the metallic VO2-x nanobeam are selectively controlled. Then, an abrupt temperature-dependent resistance changing is demonstrated in the VO2-x nanobeam with implanted VO2 segment. It is expected that the modulations on segmental compositions and IMT behaviors in the VO2-x nanobeam would help for the understanding of correlated oxides and the construction of IMT-based sensors and transistors.