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Nguyen Le Hung, Eunseong Ahn, Seongyong Park, Hooncheol Jung, Hyojin Kim,a
Soon-Ku Hong, and Dojin Kim
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Chungnam National University, Daeduk Science Town,
Daejeon 305-764, Republic of Korea
Chanyong Hwang
Advanced Industrial Technology Group, Division of Advanced Technology, Korea Research Institute
of Standards and Science, Daejeon 305-600, Republic of Korea
Received 15 June 2009; accepted 14 September 2009; published 28 October 2009
The authors investigated the hydrogen gas sensing properties of the ZnO wirelike films synthesized
by two consecutive steps: thermal oxidation of sputtered Zn metallic films in dry air. Structural
characterization revealed that the authors synthesized polycrystalline wurtzite ZnO films of a
wirelike structure with a width of less than 100 nm and a length of several micrometers, possibly
consisting of a chain of ZnO nanocrystallites with a mean granular size of 15 nm. It was found from
the gas sensing measurements that the ZnO wirelike films exhibited a maximum sensitivity, defined
as a ratio of the change in conductance upon exposure to H2 gas in dry air over the conductance in
dry air, G / Ga, of 283% to 200 ppm H2 gas at a temperature of 200 C, indicating quite a
possibility of much reduction in the operating temperature of the ZnO-based H2 gas sensors. The
ZnO wirelike film sensors showed a fast response to hydrogen gas in comparison with conventional
ZnO films. These results suggest that the ZnO wirelike films can be used as the gas sensing materials
for low-cost and high-performance gas sensors. 2009 American Vacuum Society.
DOI: 10.1116/1.3244563
1347 J. Vac. Sci. Technol. A 276, Nov/Dec 2009 0734-2101/2009/276/1347/5/$25.00 2009 American Vacuum Society 1347
1348 Hung et al.: Synthesis and hydrogen gas sensing properties of ZnO wirelike thin films 1348
FIG. 1. Typical XRD pattern of the ZnO wirelike film. The diffraction peaks
can be indexed according to the hexagonal wurtzite structure of ZnO.
FIG. 3. Resistance response curves of the ZnO wirelike film sensor a for
various H2 gas concentrations in dry air at operating temperatures of 200 C
solid line and 300 C dashed line and b for a H2 concentration of FIG. 4. Variation of the sensitivity Sg for the ZnO wirelike film a as a
200 ppm at several operating temperatures. function of operating temperature at 200 ppm H2 exposure in dry air and b
as a function of H2 gas concentration at three different operating tempera-
tures of 200, 250, and 300 C.
IV. CONCLUSIONS
To summarize, the gas sensors using ZnO wirelike films
synthesized through thermal oxidation of sputtered Zn metal
films in dry air exhibited excellent H2 gas sensing properties.
In particular, the observed high sensitivity and fast response
to H2 gas at a comparatively low temperature of 200 C
would lead to a reduction in the optimal operating tempera-
FIG. 5. Variations of the response time with H2 gas concentration for the
ZnO wirelike film at various operating temperatures of 200, 250, and ture of ZnO-based gas sensors. These features together with
300 C. the simple synthesis process demonstrate that ZnO wirelike
films are promising for the fabrication of low-cost and high-
performance H2 gas sensors operable at low temperatures.
G. A. Ozin, Adv. Mater. 13, 1468 2001. the surface reaction between adsorbed oxygen and target gas, the degree
27
J. F. Chang, H. H. Kuo, I. C. Leu, and M. H. Hon, Sens. Actuators B 84, of which is dependent on the surface-to-volume ratio 1 / D, where D is
258 2002. the dimension of the microstructure of the sensing material. Obviously,
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D. R. Patil and L. A. Patil, Sens. Actuators B 123, 546 2007. the wirelike nanostructure has a smaller D than the conventional film
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The sensitivity of semiconducting metal oxide gas sensors is attributed to microstructure.