Nanostructured and columnar vanadium and vanadium oxides films synthesized by means of magnetron-based gas aggregation source

In this study the possibility to employ magnetron-based gas aggregation source for the effective and facile production of mesoporous vanadium films composed of individual vanadium nanoparticles is investigated. It is demonstrated that due to the high deposition rate of V nanoparticles under optimized conditions, their low impact energies, and the directionality of the deposition process, it is possible not only to produce porous nanoparticle coatings, but also coatings with columnar structures. Furthermore, it is shown that such produced coatings may be easily transformed into vanadium pentoxide ones by their annealing in air at the temperature of 550 °C, without loosening the mesoporous character of resulting films.