Improving ethanol sensing characteristics of indium oxide thin films by nitrogen incorporation

Size Dependent Chemical Synthesis of Defective In2O3 Microcubes as NO2 Sensor

“…[ 5 ] Synthesis of material in a well defined morphology is an important goal of modern material chemistry because of the importance of the shape and texture of materials in determining their widely varying properties. Systematic efforts have been carried out to deposit well defined In 2 O 3 microstructures by chemical methods such as chemical bath deposition, [ 6 ] chemical vapor deposition, [ 7 ] electrospinning, [ 8 ] and hydrothermal. [ 9 ] Because of mild deposition conditions and low cost, the hydrothermal method has attracted to obtain In 2 O 3 with diverse morphologies.…”

Nitrogen doped In2O3–ZnO nanocomposite mesoporous thin film based highly sensitive and selective ethanol sensors

“…In the case of IZON 25 and IZON 75, single N 1s peaks have been observed at around 398.6 eV and 399.7 eV respectively which correspond to N s in ZnO and N i in In 2 O 3 respectively. 22 Due to the lower concentration of N-In 2 O 3 in IZON 25 and N-ZnO in IZON 75 their corresponding N 1s peaks (i.e., N i and N s respectively) could not be resolved. However, since all the samples have been prepared under identical conditions, it is envisaged that the N i : N s ratio would be similar to the In : Zn ratio in all the composite thin films.…”

“…As we had reported earlier, nitrogen doping increases the V O concentration in the chosen oxides that leads to an improvement in the dissociative adsorption of atmospheric oxygen on its surface. 22 Improvement of the receptor function of In 2 O 3 (N-In 2 O 3 ) and ZnO (N-ZnO) thin film based sensors because of nitrogen doping leads to their enhanced ethanol sensing performance in comparison with the undoped oxides. 22,27 Table S5 † compares the ethanol sensing response and operating temperature of N-In 2 O 3 , N-ZnO, IZO 50 and IZON 50 thin film sensors.…”

“…20 In contrast, doping induces changes in the electronic structure and chemical bonding and increases the oxygen vacancy concentration which leads to selective adsorption of gas molecules. 21,22 Even though metal site doping in metal oxides has been widely explored for gas sensing applications, 23,24 metal dopants often act as carrier recombination sites and induce thermal instability, which limits the sensing performance of the oxide layer. 25 On the other hand, anionic dopants such as N, C, S and F have been reported to improve photocatalytic activities in In 2 O 3 and ZnO.…”

“…In our previous reports on nitrogen doped In 2 O 3 and ZnO thin films, improved ethanol sensing performance compared to their corresponding pristine oxides has been observed. 22,27 The N-In 2 O 3 thin film displayed a fast and stable response, whereas the N-ZnO thin film exhibited selective and low temperature sensing. In both cases changes in the band gap and an increase in the oxygen vacancy have been observed.…”