Anatase titanium dioxide thin film based carbon monoxide gas sensor

Gas sensors are finding increasing number of applications in home, industrial and automotive areas. Incomplete combustion in gas and coal fired electricity plants can generate harmful gases and pollutants. The purpose of the proposed research was to develop titanium dioxide (TiO2) thin film based materials for carbon monoxide (CO) gas sensing to detect a very low concentration (20--100 ppm) of CO gas.; Anatase TiO2 thin films (100--1000 nm) have been developed using pulsed DC magnetron reactive sputtering technique on glass, Si(100) and sapphire substrates. Optimum deposition parameters were determined by studying the crystalline quality of the films using X-ray diffraction. The x-ray photo-emission (XPS) studies indicated a good stoichiometric TiO 2 surface with O to Ti ratio of 1.95 +/- 0.05. Film residual stress was measured using curvature measurements of the substrates before and after deposition of the films. The anatase TiO2 thin films on sapphire showed lower stress compared to glass and Si substrates. Raman spectroscopy measurements were further used to study the correlation between the residual stress and Raman shifts of characteristic peaks to obtain a calibration factor.; Anatase TiO2 thin films showed n-type electrical conductivity indicating the presence of shallow electron donors caused by oxygen vacancies. The response of films was tested for 100 ppm of CO in 100 sccm of N2 gas flow as a function of temperature, film thickness, and the substrate. The films show the highest response at 200°C. The films grown on sapphire substrates show the highest response. The response is higher for a film with 1000 nm thickness than the 250 nm thickness film.; The CO sensor was tested as a function of CO concentration and as well as under different environs: The films respond to very low concentration, 20--100 ppm, of CO gas, with good reversibility. The response and recovery time were from 2 min to 1 min as the concentration increased from 20 to 100 ppm. It can be completely regenerated by turn off the CO gas without exposing it to oxygen or air. The sensor showed sensitivity for CO with as high as 2000 PPM of O2 concentration. It has the same response in dry and in humid environments.; Furthermore, the anatase TiO2 thin film with no doping showed to have higher response than the doped films with Cu or La at 300°C.