Although Vanadium dioxide (VO2) has a potential application value for smart energy efficient windows because of its unique phase transition characteristic, there are still many obstacles that need to be overcome. One challenge is to reduce its high transition temperature (ζc = 68 °C) to near room temperature without causing its phase transition performance degradation. In this paper, a novel method was employed that covered a 3 nm ultra-thin heavy Cr-doped VO2 layer on the pure VO2 films. Compared with the as-grown pure VO2, obviously, phase transition temperature decreasing from 59.5 °C to 48.0 °C was observed. Different from previous doping techniques, almost no phase transition performance weakening occurred. Based on the microstructure and electrical parameters measurement results, the mechanism of ζc reducing was discussed. The upper ultra-thin heavy Cr-doped layer may act as the induced role of phase transition. With temperature increasing, carrier concentration increased from the upper heavy Cr-doped layer to the bottom pure VO2 layer by diffusion, and induced the carrier concentration reach to phase transition critical value from top to bottom gradually. The present method is not only a simpler technique, but also avoids expensive alloy targets.

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This paper presents a novel thermochromic induced transmittance filter (ITF) based on VO2 films. The ITF structure enables high transmittance in the short wavelength range with wide rejection at longer wavelengths, which meets the requirements of thermochromic VO2 for the metal-insulator transition. Thus, the VO2-based ITFs are designed and fabricated based on the induced transmittance effect, and a graded-index material TiO2 is initially adopted for the simplified structure of VO2-based ITF comparing standard ITFs. The VO2-based ITF's properties are characterized systematically and compared with those of VO2 films. Favorable results of crystallinity, surface roughness, hydrophobicity, the thermal hysteresis width, and pleasant appearance color are achieved in these VO2-based ITFs. Moreover, luminous transmittance Tlum (380–780 nm) of 48.8% and a solar modulation ability ΔTsol of 6.2% are achieved with an ideal spectrum shape in the VO2-based ITF, which provides a highly efficient solution to improve thermochromic VO2 films and related field.

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