Coexisting Phases of Individual VO Nanoparticles for Multilevel Nanoscale Memory.

Vanadium dioxide (VO) has received significant interest in the context of nanophotonic metamaterials and memories owing to its reversible insulator-metal transition associated with significant changes in its optical and electronic properties. The phase transition of VO has been extensively studied for several decades, and the ways how to control its hysteresis characteristics relevant for memory applications have significantly improved. However, the hysteresis dynamics and stability of coexisting phases during the transition have not been studied on the level of individual single-crystal VO nanoparticles (NPs), although they represent the fundamental component of ordinary polycrystalline films and can also act like nanoscale memory units on their own. Here, employing transmission electron microscopy techniques, we investigate phase transitions of single VO NPs in real time. Our analysis reveals the statistical distribution of the transition temperature and steepness and how they differ during forward (heating) and backward (cooling) transitions. We evaluate the stability of coexisting phases in individual NPs and prove the persistent multilevel memory at near room temperatures using only a few VO NPs. Our findings unveil the physical mechanisms that govern the hysteresis of VO at the nanoscale and establish VO NPs as a promising component of optoelectronic and memory devices with enhanced functionalities.