Nicolae Barsan

Conduction Model of Metal Oxide Gas Sensors

Tin dioxide is a widely used sensitive material for gas sensors. Many research and development groups in academia and industry are contributing to the increase of (basic) knowledge/(applied) know-how. However, from a systematic point of view the knowledge gaining process seems not to be coherent. One reason is the lack of a general applicable model which combines the basic principles with measurable sensor parameters.The approach in the presented work is to provide a frame model that deals with all contributions involved in conduction within a real world sensor. For doing so, one starts with identifying the different building blocks of a sensor. Afterwards their main inputs are analyzed in combination with the gas reaction involved in sensing. At the end, the contributions are summarized together with their interactions.The work presented here is one step towards a general applicable model for real world gas sensors.

Electronic nose: current status and future trends.

2.2. New Approaches 707 2.2.1. Optical Sensor Systems 707 2.2.2. Mass Spectrometry 708 2.2.3. Ion Mobility Spectrometry 708 2.2.4. Gas Chromatography 709 2.2.5. Infrared Spectroscopy 709 2.2.6. Use of Substance-Class-Specific Sensors 709 2.3. Combined Technologies 710 3. Companies 710 4. Application Areas 710 4.1. Food and Beverage 712 4.2. Environmental Monitoring 715 4.3. Disease Diagnosis 716 5. Research and Development Trends 718 5.1. Sample Handling 719 5.2. Filters and Analyte Gas Separation 719 5.3. Data Evaluation 720 6. Conclusion 721 7. References 722

Design and fabrication of high-temperature micro-hotplates for drop-coated gas sensors

Note: 243 Reference SAMLAB-ARTICLE-2000-004 Record created on 2009-05-12, modified on 2016-08-08

Solid State Gas Sensor Research in Germany – a Status Report

This status report overviews activities of the German gas sensor research community. It highlights recent progress in the field of potentiometric, amperometric, conductometric, impedimetric, and field effect-based gas sensors. It is shown that besides step-by-step improvements of conventional principles, e.g. by the application of novel materials, novel principles turned out to enable new markets. In the field of mixed potential gas sensors, novel materials allow for selective detection of combustion exhaust components. The same goal can be reached by using zeolites for impedimetric gas sensors. Operando spectroscopy is a powerful tool to learn about the mechanisms in n-type and in p-type conductometric sensors and to design knowledge-based improved sensor devices. Novel deposition methods are applied to gain direct access to the material morphology as well as to obtain dense thick metal oxide films without high temperature steps. Since conductometric and impedimetric sensors have the disadvantage that a current has to pass the gas sensitive film, film morphology, electrode materials, and geometrical issues affect the sensor signal. Therefore, one tries to measure directly the Fermi level position either by measuring the gas-dependent Seebeck coefficient at high temperatures or at room temperature by applying a modified miniaturized Kelvin probe method, where surface adsorption-based work function changes drive the drain-source current of a field effect transistor.

Flame spray pyrolysis for sensing at the nanoscale

Progress in developing novel gas sensors based on semiconducting metal oxides (SMOX) has been hindered by the cumbersome fabrication technologies currently employed. They involve time intensive synthesis procedures for gaining sensitive materials and preparation of the inks employed for realizing sensing layers. In this paper we review the opportunities offered by the relatively young method of flame spray pyrolysis, with which it is possible not only to synthesize a broad selection of SMOX in pure or doped form, but also to simultaneously deposit thick and highly porous gas sensitive films on a variety of substrates. In less than ten years the properties of nine base materials have been evaluated for all most relevant target gases and the obtained results are promising for future development.

CMOS monolithic metal-oxide sensor system comprising a microhotplate and associated circuitry

A gas sensor system fabricated in industrial CMOS technology is presented, which includes, for the first time, a microhotplate and the necessary driving and control circuitry on a single chip. Post-complementary-metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) fabrication steps, such as micromachining of the membrane structure, the deposition of noble metal on the electrodes, and the processing of the sensitive metal-oxide layer, have been developed to be fully compatible with the industrial CMOS process. Temperatures up to 350/spl deg/C were reached on the hotplates using a low-voltage power supply (5 V). A symmetric hotplate design with a temperature homogeneity of better than 2% in the heated area was realized. The integrated temperature controller regulates the membrane temperature with a resolution of /spl plusmn/0.3/spl deg/C in the tracking mode. The temperature increase on the bulk chip owing to heat transfer through the membrane is less than 2% of the respective membrane operation temperature (6/spl deg/C at 350/spl deg/C membrane temperature). The gas sensing performance of the sensor was assessed by test measurements with carbon monoxide (CO). The gas tests evidenced a limit of detection of less than 5 ppm CO.

Selectivity enhancement of SnO2 gas sensors: simultaneous monitoring of resistances and temperatures

Abstract We present results obtained with microstructured tin dioxide-based gas sensors. Thick films with controlled nanocrystallite sizes were deposited on micromachined substrates. Discrimination between CO, CH 4 , and C 2 H 5 OH, and between CO, CH 4 and H 2 in changing humidity conditions was achieved by simultaneously measuring temperature and resistance changes upon gas exposure. These results make it possible to fulfil the American and European safety standards for CO and CH 4 detection with tin dioxide based gas sensors. The physico-chemical origin of temperature and resistance changes are discussed.

Corundum-type indium (III) oxide: formation under ambient conditions in Fe2O3–In2O3 system

Abstract The influence of the iron doping on the structural transformations in In 2 O 3 has been studied. The samples were prepared by the sol–gel technique via coprecipitation from the solution of In(III) and Fe(II) salts. For the first time, the formation of corundum-type In 2 O 3 under ambient conditions in iron-doped In 2 O 3 samples was observed.

On-line novelty detection by recursive dynamic principal component analysis and gas sensor arrays under drift conditions

Leakage detection is a common chemical-sensing application. Leakage detection by thresholds on a single sensor signal suffers from important drawbacks when sensors show drift effects or when they are affected by other long-term cross sensitivities. In this paper, we present an adaptive method based on a recursive dynamic principal component analysis (RDPCA) algorithm that models the relationships between the sensors in the array and their past history. In normal conditions, a certain variance distribution characterizes sensor signals, however, in the presence of a new source of variance the PCA decomposition changes drastically. In order to prevent the influence of sensor drift, the model is adaptive, and it is calculated in a recursive manner with minimum computational effort. The behavior of this technique is studied with synthetic and real signals arising by oil vapor leakages in an air compressor. Results clearly demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed method

Design of Core–Shell Heterostructure Nanofibers with Different Work Function and Their Sensing Properties to Trimethylamine

The metal oxide semiconductor (MOS) core-shell heterostructure nanofibers (NFs) have been successfully synthesized via an environmentally friendly coaxial electrospinning approach. To demonstrate the potential applications of the as-prepared samples, sensors based on MOS core-shell heterostructure NFs have been fabricated and their gas sensing properties were investigated. Results show that the sensors exhibit an advanced gas sensing property to trimethylamine (TMA) including the outstanding selectivity and rapid response/recovery processes in comparison with the sensors based on single MOS NFs. These phenomena are closely associated with the electron flow caused by the work function difference between MOS of the core and the shell. The approach proposed in this study may contribute to the realization of more sensitive MOS core-shell heterostructure sensors.