Recent progress in vanadium dioxide: The multi-stimuli responsive material and its applications

The reversible phase transition in vanadium dioxide (VO₂) with light, heat, electric, magnetic, and mechanical stimuli is the enabling concept to function as a smart material. It is the basis for the development of numerous varieties of VO₂-based optical, electrochemical, electrical, mechanical, and energy storage devices in micron- to nano-meter scale dimensions on rigid and flexible platforms. Due to its near room temperature (RT) phase transition, VO₂ is considered an excellent alternative and promising candidate to replace the conventional materials used in various applications. Ample interests have been growing to apply VO₂ in novel devices, exploring the device functionality by structural manipulation of VO₂ that could lead to impressive innovations. Much effort is invested in resolving the practical challenges to deal with real-life applications, along with finding out industrially feasible large-scale VO₂-based device fabrication methodology which may act as a stepping stone to embark on the commercial market. In this context, it is crucial to review the recent advancements in devices that use VO₂ smart material as a building element in the device architecture along with the device operation controlled by the phase transition mechanism in VO₂. This review summarizes the new applications of VO₂ in various devices. We start with a brief introduction of the present landscape of various phase transition mechanisms involved in VO₂ followed by significant advantages of VO₂ as a functional material for various applications. In the main part of the paper, the recent five years’ progress in VO₂-based single-stimulus, multi-stimuli, and multifunctional devices, their operation mechanism, and important experimental and theoretical breakthroughs are summarized under each device. Although VO₂ plays a significant role in controlling the device operation, various practical challenges are there to be rectified to further enhance the device performance that would accelerate VO₂-based devices in reaching the commercial platform. Future trends, possible challenges in VO₂-based devices, and potential solutions are presented with perspectives in the final part of the paper.