Pure SnO2 and Y-doped SnO2 nanobelts were prepared by thermal evaporation at 1350 °C in the presence of Ar carrier gas (30 sccm). The samples were characterized by scanning electron microscope (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), energy dispersion spectrometer (EDS), X-ray photoelectron spectrometer (XPS), UV-Vis absorption spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy, and Fourier transform infrared spectrum (FTIR). The sensing properties of the devices based on a single SnO2 nanobelt and Y-doped SnO2 nanobelt were explored to acetone, ethanol, and ethanediol. It reveals that the sensitivity of single Y-doped SnO2 nanobelt device is 11.4 to 100 ppm of acetone at 210 °C, which is the highest response among the three tested VOC gases. Y3+ ions improve the sensitivity of SnO2 sensor and have an influence on the optical properties of Y-doped SnO2 nanobelts.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s11671-016-1685-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Mn doped SnO 2 nanobelts (Mn:SnO 2 NBs) and pure SnO 2 nanobelts (SnO 2 NBs) were synthesized by thermal evaporation technique at 1355˚C with Ar carrier gas (25 sccm, 150 Torr). The SEM, EDS, XRD, TEM, HRTEM, SAED, XPS, UV-Vis techniques were used to characterize the attained samples. The band gap of Mn doped SnO 2 NBs by UV-Vis was measured to be 3.43 eV at room temperature, lower than that of the pure counterpart with ~3.66 eV. Mn:SnO 2 NB and pure SnO 2 NB sensors were developed. It is found that Mn:SnO 2 NB device exhibits a higher sensitivity with 62.12% to 100 ppm of ethanol at 210˚C, which is the highest sensitivity among the three tested VOC gases (ethanol, ethanediol, and acetone). The theoretical detection limit for ethanol of the sensor is 1.1 ppm. The higher response is related to the selective catalysis of the doped Mn ions.

No abstract