Amorphous NbO films prepared by reactive evaporation

Reactive evaporation technique was employed to produce amorphous NbO thin films directly. It was revealed that the sheet electrical resistance of the amorphous NbO films was much greater than that of the crystalline counterpart. The thermal stability of the amorphous NbO films was studied by in situ annealing, and the crystallization temperature of the amorphous NbO was observed to be 1120±50 K. The amorphous NbO thin films also crystallized upon 250 keV Xe+ irradiation to a dose of 5×1015 Xe+/cm2.