Vanadium pentoxide thin films deposited by the thermionic vacuum arc plasma

The Vanadium pentoxide (V2O5) thin films were deposited on glass substrates by a Thermionic vacuum arc (TVA) plasma system. The structural, elemental, surface morphological, and optical properties of the deposited thin films were investigated in detail using X-ray diffraction (XRD), Raman spectroscopy, Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FT-IR), Ultraviolet-visible (UV-VIS) spectroscopy, field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX), and atomic force microscopy (AFM). In this study, the V2O5 thin films deposited on the glass substrates were produced at three different arc powers at fixed cathode filament current and deposition time, and all characteristics of the deposited thin films were analyzed separately for these three arc powers. The thicknesses of the V2O5 thin films deposited at arc powers of 80, 280, and 640 W were measured as 92, 98, and 204 nm, respectively. The main objective of the research is to show that V2O5 thin films can be deposited by the TVA with the features specified by the technology, which cannot be arranged easily in other methods. While all the deposited thin films have an amorphous structure and roughness as small as 0.4 - 1.8 nm, the arc power did not cause any different bonding in the atomic structure. The transmittance of each film, in the spectral range of 300 to 900 nm, was measured and the optical energy band gap (Eg) was calculated for three films deposited at various arc powers and found to be 3.84, 3.42, and 3.20 eV for the direct allowed transitions respectively.