Fabrication of vanadium oxide micro-optical switches

Abstract This paper presents an optical switch based on a vanadium dioxide VO 2 thin film fabricated on quartz and Si substrates. Vanadium oxide thin films with 48 °C semiconducting-to-metal phase transition temperature are fabricated by reactive ion beam sputtering followed by a post-annealing process step. Optical tests at λ  = 1.55 μm show that the insertion loss and contrast ratio of fabricated switches are 2 dB and more than 15 dB, respectively. Switching times under 1 ms have also been observed and the power consumption of an individual switch is less than 25 mW.