Abstract
Abstract Ammonia is one of the most hazardous substances and it is extremely toxic if inhaled above the moderate level. Sensing ammonia at low concentration levels and at room temperature is one of the most challenging tasks. In this work, nanostructured undoped and copper doped zinc oxide thin films were deposited using spray pyrolysis technique and their structural, morphological, optical and ammonia vapour sensing properties were investigated. The X-ray diffraction (XRD) patterns confirmed the polycrystalline nature of the films with hexagonal wurtzite structure, Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy (FESEM) images revealed the spherical grain morphology. XRD and FESEM data revealed the decrease in grain size with increase in Cu-dopant concentration. Decrease in band gap and transmittance with increase in Cu concentration was observed using UV–vis spectrophotometer. The room temperature (303 K) ammonia sensing response of pure and Cu-doped ZnO thin films was found to be significant. The Cu-doped films we report have much better performance than those reported so far with a faster response and recovery times of 30 and 14 s respectively while sensing 50 ppm of NH 3 .
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