Thermal hysteresis measurement of the VO2 dielectric function for its metal-insulator transition by visible-IR ellipsometry

The real and imaginary parts of the dielectric function of VO2 thin films, deposited on r-plane sapphire via pulsed laser deposition, are measured by means of visible-infrared ellipsometry for wavelengths ranging from 0.4 to 15 mu m and temperatures within its phase transition. For both the insulator-to-metal (heating) and metal-to-insulator (cooling) transitions, it is shown that the two ellipsometric signals exhibit three temperature-driven behaviors, which are well described by appropriate combinations of the Tauc-Lorentz, Gaussian, and Drude oscillator models. By fitting Bruggeman's effective medium model for the dielectric function to the corresponding measured experimental values, using the volumetric fraction of the VO2 metallic domains as a fitting parameter for different temperatures within the VO2 phase transition, we have found that this model is suitable for describing the dielectric function in visible and near-infrared wavelengths (similar to 0.4 to similar to 3.0 mu m), but it generally fails for longer infrared ones. Furthermore, the hysteresis loop of the VO2 emissivity averaged over a relevant interval of wavelengths is determined and shown to vary from similar to 0.49, in the insulator phase, to similar to 0.16, in the metallic one. These values, based on the VO2 dielectric function, are consistent with previous measurements reported in the literature, and therefore, our measured data are expected to be useful for describing the behavior of VO2 films involved in optical and radiative applications.