Transmission lines thermal switches utilizing novel phase changing materials

Abstract

Thermal switching has attracted the research interest during the last decades. Phase Changing Materials (PCM) have the ability to vary their electric conductivity upon external stimuli such as heating and as a result they can be used as thermal switchers in transmission lines. Vanadium dioxide (VO2) is a PCM the electrical conductivity of which can be varied by 3–4 orders of magnitude, undergoing an insulator to metal transition (IMT) at a critical transition temperature of 68 oC. In this work VO2 in the form of powder was synthesized by hydrothermal synthesis and was tested as thermal switching material in as far as the critical transition temperature (TC) of IMT and the width (ΔTc) of IMT hysteresis loop are concerned.