Oliver Freudenberg

Metal oxide nanowire gas sensors for indoor and outdoor environmental monitoring

We present performance results of SnO2 and CuO nanowire gas sensor devices, where single and multi-nanowire device configurations have been employed in order to optimize sensor design. In particular the response to the target gases CO, H2, and H2S has been measured in dry and humid air; both the SnO2 and CuO nanowire sensors are able to detect CO in the low ppm concentration range, which is important for environmental monitoring. The CuO multi-nanowire devices show an extraordinary high response to H2S with sensitivity in the low ppb concentration. We present our developments of CMOS technology based micro-hotplates, which are employed as platform for gas sensitive thin films and nanowires. Potential heterogeneous integration of nanowires on the micro-hotplate chips as well as an approach towards gas sensor arrays is discussed. We conclude that CMOS integrated multi-nanowire gas sensors are highly promising candidates for the practical realization of multi-parameter sensor devices for indoor and outdoor environmental monitoring.