Improved recovery time and sensitivity to H2 and NH3 at room temperature with SnOx vertical nanopillars on ITO

[en] Nanostructured SnO2 is a promising material for the scalable production of portable gas sensors. To fully exploit their potential, these gas sensors need a faster recovery rate and higher sensitivity at room temperature than the current state of the art. Here we demonstrate a chemiresistive gas sensor based on vertical SnOx nanopillars, capable of sensing < 5 ppm of H2 at room temperature and 10 ppt at 230 °C. We test the sample both in vacuum and in air and observe an exceptional improvement in the performance compared to commercially available gas sensors. In particular, the recovery time for sensing NH3 at room temperature is more than one order of magnitude faster than a commercial SnO2 sensor. The sensor shows an unique combination of high sensitivity and fast recovery time, matching the requirements on materials expected to foster widespread use of portable and affordable gas sensors.

Disciplines :

Physics

Author, co-author :

D'Arsié, L.

Alijani, V.

Brunelli, S.T.S.

Rigoni, F.

Di Santo, G.

Caputo, M.

PANIGHEL, Mirco ; UNITS - University of Trieste > Department of Physics, via Valerio 2, 34100 Trieste, Italy

Freddi, S.

Sangaletti, L.

Goldoni, A.

External co-authors :

yes

Language :

English

Title :

Improved recovery time and sensitivity to H2 and NH3 at room temperature with SnOx vertical nanopillars on ITO

Publication date :

03 July 2018

Journal title :

Scientific Reports

eISSN :

2045-2322

Volume :

Issue :

Pages :

10028

Peer reviewed :

Peer Reviewed verified by ORBi

Additional URL :

https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-85049520576&doi=10.1038%2fs41598-018-28298-w&partnerID=40&md5=6b2d813ece64ab25358dd920bcce14bd

Funding text :

V.A. acknowledges the Italian Ministero dell’Istruzione, dell’Universitá e della Ricerca (FIRB Nanosolar RBAP11C58Y_003) and A.G. thank the NATO – G51 project.

Available on ORBilu :

since 22 May 2025

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