Contactless Monitoring of Conductivity Changes in Vanadium Pentoxide Xerogel Layers Using Surface Acoustic Waves

Abstract The hydrated form of the vanadium pentoxide (V 2 O 5 · n H 2 O) deposited by the sol-gel method on the piezoelectric YZ-LiNbO 3 substrate has been studied using surface acoustic waves (SAWs). Brush-deposited and spin-coated layers, differing in thickness by an order of magnitude (∼1 μm and ∼0.1 μm, respectively) were studied. The variations with time in the transmitted SAW amplitude and phase during the gel-to-xerogel transition of V 2 O 5 · n H 2 O were observed and attributed to the acoustoelectric interaction. The possibilities of using the SAWs for contactless monitoring of the layer sheet conductivity have been demonstrated.