| This dissertation discussed the construction and investigation of a poly (3-hexylthiophene) conducting polymer based thin film micro-sensor for a real-time detection of hydrazine vapor at ambient pressure. A type of low cost, small size, passive poly (3-hexylthiophene) thin film micro-sensor was designed and fabricated. The micro-sensor platform consisted of a rectangular shaped inert substrate and gold interdigited electrode pairs. A layer of poly (3-hexylthiophene) thin film was coated onto the sensor platform using a spin coating method, and nitrosonium hexafluorophosphate (NOPF6) was used to dope the poly (3-hexylthiophene) thin film to increase its electrical conductivity and form the finished sensor.;The basic responses of the sensor to hydrazine vapor were experimentally investigated. The primary results showed that the sensor responded to hydrazine vapor in less than a few seconds; attained orders of magnitude change in normalized resistance during hydrazine exposure, and was not easily saturated. The interaction between the hydrazine gas molecules and doped poly (3-hexylthiophene) thin film was studied. The plausible mechanism was determined as: Charge carriers inside the doped poly (3-hexylthiophene) thin film were depleted during the oxidation-reduction chemical reaction between the hydrazine vapor and polymer film, resulting a reduction in the polymer film's electrical conductivity. Experiments were also conducted to find out the effects of hydrazine concentration, poly (3-hexylthiophene) thin film thickness, sensor storage time, environment temperature, and environment humidity on the sensor's performance. The response rate of the sensor under different sensing conditions was calculated and discussed.;A diffusion-reaction model was applied to simulate the interaction between hydrazine molecules and doped poly (3-hexylthiophene) thin film. The profiles of hydrazine gas diffusion and positive charge carrier neutralization in the polymer film were obtained. Generally good agreement was achieved between the numerical simulation and experimental results which confirmed that the process was mainly controlled by the gas diffusion and chemical reaction. The positive correlation observed between computational and experimental data offers confidence in the prediction of sensor responses for different polymer film thicknesses and operation temperatures. |
