Site-Specific Growth and in Situ Integration of Different Nanowire Material Networks on a Single Chip: Toward a Nanowire-Based Electronic Nose for Gas Detection

Abstract

A new method for the site-selective synthesis of nanowires has been developed to enable material growth with defined morphology and, at the same time, different composition on the same chip surface. The chemical vapor deposition approach for the growth of these nanowire-based resistive devices using micromembranes can be easily modified and represents a simple, adjustable fabrication process for the direct integration of nanowire meshes in multifunctional devices. This proof-of-concept study includes the deposition of SnO, WO, and Ge nanowires on the same chip. The individual resistors exhibit adequate gas sensing responses toward changing gas concentrations of CO, NO, and humidity diluted in synthetic air. The data have been processed by principal component analysis with cluster responses that can be easily separated, and thus, the devices described herein are in principle suitable for environmental monitoring.

Electrical characterization and examination of temperature-induced degradation of metastable Ge0.81Sn0.19nanowires

“…Group IV semiconductor nanowires (NWs) are promising building blocks for various fields of application including electronic and sensing devices, 1 , 2 solar cells, 3 , 4 lithium ion batteries, 5 , 6 etc . Their electronic properties can be altered by incorporation of well-known dopants in the semiconductor host lattice, 7 – 9 while recently extraordinary high amounts of these known dopants as well as non-common metal incorporation in nanoscaled group IV elements is described.…”

Localized and In-Situ Integration of Different Nanowire Materials for Electronic Nose Applications

“…A solution to this problem is the use of pattern recognition across sensor arrays with different sensing configurations (either using different sensing materials or operation temperatures), giving rise to a called e-nose configuration. This work, recently published [2], demonstrates for the first time that site-selective growth of different materials in form of nanowires for sensing applications is possible on a single chip in a defined geometry, with little interference on the growth parameters caused by the prior deposition of other nanostructured material. The use of chemical vapor deposition techniques is compatible as a CMOS post-process and, therefore, the impact of preparing gas sensors on any kind of chips for multifunctional devices is intriguing.…”

Geometrically Structured Nanomaterials for Nanosensors, NEMS, and Nanosieves

“…Conventionally, nanomaterials have been manufactured by bottom‐up‐based methods, which are methods of making nanostructures by growing or synthesizing materials, and include the vapor‐liquid‐solid (VLS) method, the hydrothermal method, and solution‐based synthesis; these methods have been used to make nanodevices through dispersion on substrates 54–63. However, these methods have allowed only demonstrations of randomly distributed arrangements of nanomaterials on substrates, which has hindered wide expansion of nanowire applications 95–97.…”

“…These nanomaterials have been actively employed in many applications, such as thermal heaters, transistors, physical and chemical sensors, catalysts, displays, and so forth 15,35–53. The great interest in and demand for these nanomaterials have led to the development of diverse fabrication processes to produce them 54–63. Conventionally, nanomaterials have been synthesized based on bottom‐up processes, but more recently, there has been huge interest in advanced fabrication processes, including top‐down fabrication and hybrid fabrication combining bottom‐up and top‐down approaches to achieve high throughput and cost‐effectiveness, eventually finding a way to the industrialization of nanomaterials 5,64–76…”