Metal oxide semiconducting gas sensors are one of the most widely used gas sensing devices due to their low cost, high reliability, solid-state, and high response. While they have been employed for the detection of various gases and in many applications, several issues remain including their limited selectivity and humidity interference. As the core part of a semiconducting gas sensor, sensing materials play the key role in determining the sensing performance of the device, with the materials’ microstructure and surface properties being the dominant factors. Thus the primary consideration for the fabrication of conductometric semiconducting gas sensors is the design and optimization of the gas sensing materials towards different target gases. One-dimensional ZnO nanowires have attracted great interests in gas sensing since firstly reported by Xu et al. in 2005 and are placed a high expectation to overcome the present limitations of semiconducting gas sensors because of their high specific surface area, comparable dimensions to the surface charge region, high crystallinity, easy surface functionalization, and good electron transport capacity. Furthermore, constructing hetero-structure is a very attractive and effective strategy to regulate and improve the sensing performance of semiconducting gas-sensing materials due to the unique effects when the two different component materials are brought into close contact. Therefore, in this project, we aim to synthesis metal oxide heterostructure nanowires and explore their gas sensing applications.
Project ended: 08/19/2021