Effect of grain sizes on the metal-semiconductor phase transition in vanadium dioxide polycrystalline thin films

Experimental data on the effect of grain sizes on the shape and width of the hysteresis loop characterizing a metal-semiconductor phase transition in vanadium dioxide films are analyzed in terms of the classical theory of nucleation. It is shown that the factors responsible for the changes in the shape and width of the hysteresis loop with variations in the size of the grains making up a film are associated with the heterogeneous character of nucleation of a new phase, on the one hand, and with the elastic stresses arising in the phase transition, on the other.