Uniaxial compression influence on switching parameters of structures based on vanadium anodic oxide films

The application of pressure or mechanical strain is one of the promising ways to control metal-insulator transition in oxide materials, which makes its practical use possible. The article is concerned with the study of uniaxial compression influence on electronic switching parameters of the thin film sandwich structures based on vanadium anodic oxide films. The switching effect with S-shaped current-voltage characteristics was obtained for analyzed samples. Pressure dependence of the threshold on-off voltage was investigated. The study showed that the threshold voltage of switching (and, accordingly, metal-insulator transition temperature) decreases together with pressure elevation. The obtained results were compared to similar ones for structures based on xerogel V 20 5 x nH 2O. A possible use of the discovered effect to design temperature and mechanical pressure for thin film microsensors was discussed.