Effect of ultraviolet radiation exposure on room-temperature hydrogen sensitivity of nanocrystalline doped tin oxide sensor incorporated into microelectromechanical systems device

Abstract

The effect of ultraviolet (UV) radiation exposure on the room-temperature hydrogen (H2) sensitivity of nanocrystalline indium oxide (In2O3)-doped tin oxide (SnO2) thin-film gas sensor is investigated in this article. The present sensor is incorporated into microelectromechanical systems device using sol-gel dip-coating technique. The present sensor exhibits a very high sensitivity, as high as 65 000–110 000, at room temperature, for 900ppm of H2 under the dynamic test condition without UV exposure. The H2 sensitivity is, however, observed to reduce to 200 under UV radiation, which is contrary to the literature data, where an enhanced room-temperature gas sensitivity has been reported under UV radiation. The observed phenomenon is attributed to the reduced surface coverage by the chemisorbed oxygen ions under UV radiation, which is in consonance with the prediction of the constitutive equation, proposed recently by the authors, for the gas sensitivity of nanocrystalline semiconductor oxide thin-film sensors.