Achieving room-temperature M2-phase VO2 nanowires for superior thermal actuation

Vanadium dioxide (VO2) has emerged as a promising micro-actuator material for its large amplitude and high work density across the transition between insulating (M1 M2) metallic (R) phase. Even though M2–R offers about 70% higher transformation stress than M1–R structural phase transition, application of M2 in micro-actuators is hindered by fact that previously, can only stay stable under tensile stress. In this work, we propose verify synthesizing VO2 nanowires optimized oxygen-rich conditions, stoichiometry change be introduced into (NWs) which turn yield number free-standing single-crystalline M2-phase NWs at room temperature. addition, demonstrate output 65% M1-phase during their to R phase, quite close theoretical prediction. Our findings open new avenues towards enhancing performance VO2-based actuators using transition.