Niyom Hongsith

Realization of Interlinked ZnO Tetrapod Networks for UV Sensor and Room-Temperature Gas Sensor.

Here, interlinked ZnO tetrapod networks (ITN-ZnO) have been realized by using microwave-assisted thermal oxidation. With this simple and fast process, a nanostructured ZnO morphology having tetrapodlike features with leg-to-leg linking is obtained. The electrical and ethanol-sensing properties related to the morphology of ITN-ZnO compared with those of other ZnO morphologies have also been investigated. It has been found that ITN-ZnO unexpectedly exhibits superior electrical and gas-sensing properties in terms of providing pathways for electron transport to the electrode. A UV sensor and a room-temperature gas sensor with improved performance are achieved. Therefore, ITN-ZnO is an attractive morphology of ZnO that is applicable for many new applications because of its novel properties. The novel properties of ITN-ZnO are beneficial for electronic, photonic, optoelectronic, and sensing applications. ITN-ZnO may provide a means to improve the devices based on ITN-ZnO.

Enhancement of Ethanol Sensing Properties by Impregnating Platinum on Surface of ZnO Tetrapods

ZnO tetrapods with a cross-sectional size of about 200-1000 nm were synthesized via an oxidation reaction technique. The sensors based on ZnO tetrapods and platinum impregnated ZnO tetrapods were fabricated and investigated for ethanol sensing properties. The gas sensing properties of the sensors were investigated for ethanol concentration of 50-1000 ppm at different operating temperatures. It was found that the sensitivities of platinum impregnated ZnO tetrapod sensors were higher than that of pure ZnO tetrapod sensors. The enhancement of sensitivity due to platinum impregnation to ZnO tetrapods may be explained either by an increase of adsorbed oxygen density or an increase of reaction rate coefficient in a rate equation for an ethanol adsorption reaction on the ZnO surface. Also, the slope value of the plot between log(S-1) and logC suggested that adsorbed oxygen ion species at the surface of the platinum impregnated ZnO tetrapods was O 2- which was the same as pure ZnO tetrapods. Finally, these results have an important implication for a development of ethanol sensors based on metal oxide semiconductors for alcohol breath analyzers.

Metal-Oxide Nanowires for Gas Sensors

In past decades, gas sensors based on the metal oxide semiconductors (MOSs) have been studied in diverse field for wide applications. A gas sensor is a device that can be used to detect various gas such as ethanol, LPG, CO2 and CO gases etc. The gas sensors based on MOSs such as SnO2, TiO2, WO3, ZnO, Fe2O3, and In2O3 have an important role in environmental monitor‐ ing, chemical process controlling, personal safety (Q. Wan et al., 2004), industrial process controls, for the detection of toxic environmental pollutants in human health, and for the prevention of hazardous gas leaks, which comes from the manufacturing processes (K. Arshak&I. Gaidan, 2005), wine quality monitoring, and traffic safety (X.F. Song et al., 2009).

Metal-Oxide Nanowires by Thermal Oxidation Reaction Technique

The metal-oxides are very interesting materials because they possess wide and universal properties including physical and chemical properties. For example, metal-oxides exhibit wide range of electrical property from superconducting, metallic, semiconducting, to insulating properties (Henrich & Cox, 1994). The wide ranges of properties makes metaloxide suitable for many applications including corrosion protection, catalysis, fuel cells, gas sensor, solar cells, field effect transistor, magnetic storage (Henrich, 2001), UV light emitters, detectors, piezoelectric transducers, and transparent electronics (Hsueh & Hsu, 2008) etc. Recently, nanostructures of metal-oxide such as nanowire, nanorod, nanobelt, nanosheet, nanoribbon, and nanotube have gained a great attention due to their distinctive and novel properties from conventional bulk and thin film materials for new potential applications. These unique properties cause by quantum confinement effect (Manmeet et al., 2006), lower dimensionality (Wang et al., 2008), change of density of state (Lyu et al., 2002), and high surface-to-volume ratio (Wangrat et al., 2009). Nanowires can be regarded as one-dimensional (1D) nanostructures which have gained interest for nanodevice design and fabrication (Wang et al., 2008). As an example of metaloxide nanowires, the materials are focused on zinc oxide (ZnO) and copper oxide (CuO). ZnO which is n-type semiconductor has been widely studied since 1935 with a direct band gap of 3.4 eV and large exciton binding energy of 60 meV at the room temperature (Coleman & Jagadish, 2006). ZnO has a wurtzite structure, while CuO, which is p-type semiconductor with narrow band gap of 1.2 eV , has a monoclinic crystal structure (Raksa et al., 2009). ZnO and CuO can be synthesized by various techniques such as pulse laser deposition (PLD) (Choopun et al., 2005), chemical vapor deposition (VD) (Hirate et al., 2005), thermal evaporation (Jie et al., 2004; Ronning et al., 2004), metal-catalyzed molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) (Wu et al., 2002; Chan et al., 2003; Schubert et al., 2004), chemical beam epitaxy (CBE) (Bjork et al., 2002) and thermal oxidation technique (Wongrat et al., 2009). Thermal oxidation technique is interesting because it is a simple, and cheap technique. Many researchers have reported about the growth of ZnO and CuO by thermal oxidation technique with difference conditions such as temperature, time, catalyst, and gas flow. The list of metal-oxide nanowires synthesized by thermal oxidation is shown in Table 1.

Effect of Platinum Impregnation on ZnO Tetrapods for Ethanol Sensor

Platinum impregnated ZnO tetrapods were prepared and studied for the detection of ethanol vapor. ZnO tetrapods were synthesized by oxidation reaction technique by heating a mixer of zinc powder (99.99%) and hydrogen peroxide solution (30 wt.%) at 1,000oC in air. Platinum was impregnated by dropping hydrogen hexachloroplatinate (IV) hydrate, H2Cl6Pt.aq, solution with different concentration on ZnO tetrapods and then, heated at 350oC for 1 hr. The platinum impregnated ZnO tetrapods were characterized by field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM) and energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) for morphology and chemical composition, respectively. The particles were observed on the surface of ZnO tetrapods. The EDS spectrum suggested that the particles were platinum. Platinum impregnated ZnO tetrapods were tested ethanol sensing properties under ethanol concentration of 50-1,000 ppm. The ethanol sensing results indicated that the sensitivity of the sensors depended on the platinum impregnated concentration. Moreover, the sensors based on platinum impregnated ZnO tetrapods of 0.035 wt.% exhibited higher sensitivity compare to those of non-impregnation ZnO tetrapods.

Effect of Nickel Oxide Thin Films on Photoconversion Efficiency in Zinc Oxide Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells

ZnO dye-sensitized solar cells (ZnO DSSCs) with different thickness of NiO thin films coated in photo-electrode and counter-electrode were investigated. NiO thin films were prepared by thermal evaporation of NiO onto FTO glass substrate. The films were characterized by FE-SEM. For the photo-electrode, NiO thin films were coated on ZnO with 0.2, 0.6, 1.1 and 2.2 mg to form a barrier layer. For the counter-electrode, NiO thin films were coated on FTO glass with 5.4, 10.8, 16.2 and 21.6 mg in order to increase a surface-to-volume ratio. The photoconversion efficiency of ZnO DSSCs was measured under illumination of stimulated sunlight obtained from solar simulator with the radiant power of 100 mW/cm2. It was found that ZnO DSSCs coated with 0.6 mg NiO in photo-electrode and 10.8 mg in counter-electrode exhibited the highest photoconversion efficiency of 1.00% and 0.92%, respectively. The enhancement of photoconversion efficiency with NiO coating maybe explained by decreasing of charge recombination in photo-electrode and increasing of active surface area in counter-electrode.

Enhancement of sensor response by Au nanoparticles doping on ZnO tetrapod sensor

Zinc oxide tetrapods (T-ZnO) were synthesized using thermal oxidation technique from Zn powders mixed with hydrogen per oxide (H2O2). Through a detailed field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS), and x-ray diffraction (XRD) showed that the T-ZnO exhibited single crystalline hexagonal wurtzite structure. The leg tip of the T-ZnO was about 8.17±1.17 µm in length and 47.80 nm in diameter. The ethanol sensors, based on the T-ZnO and the T-ZnO doped with Au nanoparticles (Au/T-ZnO), were fabricated and investigated for the ethanol sensing properties. The ethanol sensor response of the T-ZnO and the Au/T-ZnO sensors was tested at the operating temperature of 260-360°C with the ethanol concentration of 50, 100, 500, and 1000 ppm. The results showed that the Au/T-ZnO sensors exhibited exceptionally higher sensitivity than the pure T-ZnO sensors for entire ethanol concentration with optimum temperature of 340°C and 320°C, respectively. This enhancement can be explained in terms of the electron concentration of sensor in air, n0 and the reaction rate constant, kEth between the adsorbed oxygen species and the ethanol vapor due to the increase of effective surface for adsorption of ethanol on the surface. With an excellent catalytic ability, the Au nanoparticles doping on the T-ZnO sensors would result in higher reaction rate constant than the undoped T-ZnO sensors.

Synthesis and Characterization of MgO by Microwave-Assisted Thermal Oxidation for Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells

Magnesium oxide (MgO) nanostructures were synthesized by microwave-assisted thermal oxidation at various amount of activated carbon additive. The MgO nanostructures were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray diffractrometry (XRD) and UV-Visible spectroscopy, respectivly. It was observed that, the obtained MgO have nanocube shape. The MgO nanostructures were applied as a blocking layer in ZnO dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSC). The photovoltage, photocurrent, and power conversion efficiency characteristics of DSSCs were measured under illumination of simulated sunlight obtained from a solar simulator with the radiant power of 100 mW/cm2. The DSSCs with MgO layer exhibited higher current density, open circuit voltage and photoconversion efficiency than those without MgO layer The optimum power conversion efficiency (PCE) was 2.49 % with short circuit current (Jsc) of 6.61 mA/cm2, the open circuit voltage (Voc) of 0.66 V and the fill factor (FF) of 0.59, respectively.