Abstract
Al-doped NiO (NiO:Al) has attracted the interest of researchers due to its excellent optical and electrical properties. In this work, NiO:Al films were deposited on glass substrates by the radio frequencies (rf) sputtering technique at room temperature and they were tested against ozone gas. The Oxygen content in (Ar-O2) plasma was varied from 2% to 4% in order to examine its effect on the gas sensing performance of the films. The thickness of the films was between 160.3 nm and 167.5 nm, while the Al content was found to be between 5.3 at% and 6.7 at%, depending on the oxygen content in plasma. It was found that NiO:Al films grown with 4% O2 in plasma were able to detect 60 ppb of ozone with a sensitivity of 3.18% at room temperature, while the detection limit was further decreased to 10 ppb, with a sensitivity of 2.54%, at 80 °C, which was the optimum operating temperature for these films. In addition, the films prepared in 4% O2 in plasma had lower response and recovery time compared to those grown with lower O2 content in plasma. Finally, the role of the operating temperature on the gas sensing properties of the NiO:Al films was investigated.
Highlights
Ozone (O3 ) is a well-known harmful gas existing in the atmosphere as a product of photochemical reactions of Nitrogen dioxide (NO2 ) and/or Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs), which are very common environmental pollutants that come from industrial activity, cars, etc
The X-ray Diffraction (XRD) patterns of rf-sputtered Al-doped Nickel oxide (NiO) films deposited on Si substrates at
Al-doped NiO films were grown by the rf sputtering technique with different oxygen contents in Ar-O2 plasma, i.e., 2%, 2.8%, and 4%, at room temperature
Summary
Ozone (O3 ) is a well-known harmful gas existing in the atmosphere as a product of photochemical reactions of Nitrogen dioxide (NO2 ) and/or Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs), which are very common environmental pollutants that come from industrial activity, cars, etc. [1]. Ozone (O3 ) is a well-known harmful gas existing in the atmosphere as a product of photochemical reactions of Nitrogen dioxide (NO2 ) and/or Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs), which are very common environmental pollutants that come from industrial activity, cars, etc. Various kinds of materials, such as Metal Oxide Semiconductors (MOS) [3,4,5], inorganic perovskites [6], as well as hybrid perovskites [7] have been examined as gas sensing elements for ozone detection during the last decades. MOS are by far the most well studied materials for ozone gas sensing applications due to their excellent electrical and optical properties as well as the fact that they can be grown by a number of methods even at large scale [8,9]. Nickel oxide (NiO) is a p-type metal oxide semiconductor with a wide energy band gap of 3.4–3.8 eV that has interesting optoelectronic properties [10]
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