In this paper we used Raman spectroscopy to investigate the optical properties of vanadium dioxide (VO2) thin films during the thermally induced insulating to metallic phase transition. We observed a significant difference in transition temperature i
n similar VO2 films grown on quartz and sapphire substrates: the film grown on quartz displayed the phase transition at a lower temperature (Tc=50C) compared a film grown on sapphire (Tc=68C). We also investigated differences in the detected Raman signal for different wavelengths and polarizations of the excitation laser. We found that for either substrate, a longer wavelength (in our case 785 nm) yielded the clearest VO2 Raman spectra, with no polarization dependence.
