Absorption and scattering of light by VO2 nanoparticle array

Much attention has been paid to the semiconductor-metal phase transition in vanadium dioxide nanomaterials, accompanied with an abrupt change in its resistivity and near-infrared transmission. The phase transition and optical properties of vanadium dioxide nanoparticles were studied by the mathematical model based on the complex refractive changing with the temperature and wavelength. The optical properties of nano-array were investigated by using the discrete dipole approximation and Mie scattering theory, as well as the absorption and scattering properties of small particles. The results show that the main contribution to the optical response with variational wavelength in the infrared is from absorption cross section comparing with the scattering cross section. It is obvious that the absorption peak of metal phase occurs near 980nm. With the change of temperature, the variation of extinction coefficient is larger in the infrared region than in the visible region. The largest change of extinction coefficient occurs in the near-infrared region. The extincition coefficient is very small in the visible region and there is a maximal value in the infrared region in the nano-array. © 2009 SPIE.