Confocal Raman microscopy across the metal-insulator transition of single vanadium dioxide nanoparticles.

We present the first Raman scattering measurements on nanoparticulate vanadium dioxide (VO(2)), as well as the first observations of the temperature-induced phase transition in individual VO(2) nanoparticles (NPs). We compare the Raman response of two VO(2) NPs and a companion VO(2) film undergoing their monoclinic-tetragonal-monoclinic transformations and offer qualitative explanations for the large observed differences in hysteresis width. While bulk crystals and contiguous films contain numerous nucleation sites, individual NPs likely harbor only a few, which may make it possible to correlate detectable defects (e.g., grain boundaries and dislocations) with the "ease" of switching phases, as quantified by the width of the thermal hysteresis.