  The optical properties of vanadium dioxide ($VO_2$) can be tuned via
metal-insulator transition. In this work different types of one-dimensional
photonic structure-based microcavities that embed vanadium dioxide have been
studied in the spectral range between 900 nm and 2000 nm. In particular, $VO_2$
has been sandwiched between: i) two photonic crystals made of $SiO_2$ and
$ZrO_2$; ii) two aperiodic structures made of $SiO_2$ and $ZrO_2$ that follow
the Thue-Morse sequence; iii) two disordered photonic structures, made of
$SiO_2$ and $ZrO_2$ in which the disorder is introduced either by a random
sequence of the two materials or by a random variation of the thicknesses of
the layers; iv) two four material-based photonic crystals made of $SiO_2$,
$Al_2O_3$, $Y_2O_3$, and $ZrO_2$. The ordered structures i and iv show,
respectively, one and two intense transmission valleys with defect modes, while
the aperiodic and disordered structures ii and iii show a manifold of
transmission valleys due to their complex layered configurations. The
metal-insulator transition of $VO_2$, controlled by temperature, results in a
modulation of the optical properties of the microcavities.
