Simultaneous Structural and Electronic Transitions in Epitaxial VO2/TiO2(001)

Recent reports have identified new metaphases of VO2 with strain and/or doping, suggesting the structural phase transition and the metal-to-insulator transition might be decoupled. Using epitaxially strained VO2/TiO2 (001) thin films, which display a bulklike abrupt metal-to-insulator transition and rutile to monoclinic transition structural phase transition, we employ x-ray standing waves combined with hard x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy to simultaneously measure the structural and electronic transitions. This x-ray standing waves study elegantly demonstrates the structural and electronic transitions occur concurrently within experimental limits (±1 K).