Synthesis of epitaxial rutile-type VO2and VO2(B) polymorph films

We exploit epitaxial relationships of rutile-type VO₂ with (0001) Al₂O₃, (111) LaAlO₃, (10‾10) Al₂O₃, and (10‾12) Al₂O₃ to achieve high-quality VO₂ thin-film synthesis. We show that the deposition temperature can be lowered when these substrates are employed compared to one with no preferred crystallographic relationship with VO₂, such as Si. We also report the first thin-film synthesis of the metastable VO₂(B) polymorph on (001) LaAlO₃ with a strongly preferred (001) out-of-plane orientation. These results are of interest for integrating _VO2 films with other oxides in optoelectronic and reconfigurable device structures.