Roya Maboudian (Advisor)

SnO2-based chemiresistive gas sensors can effectively detect combustible, explosive and toxic gases, and have been widely used in safety monitoring and process control in residential buildings, in various industrial settings and in mines. However, sensitivity and selectivity are still needed to be further improved for most current SnO2-based gas sensors. In addition, their high power consumption due to their high working temperature (200-400°C) limits their further development. Graphene, due to its unique characteristics (such as excellent electrical conductivity, large surface...

In this study, we report on the synthesis of the NiO/ZnO heterostructured nanowires by a facile two-step liquid phase route and their gas sensing characteristics employing Au interdigitated electrodes integrated on a miniature ceramic heater. Microstructural characterizations indicate that flocculent NiO particles are uniformly assembled on the outer surfaces of the single-crystalline ZnO nanowires, with diameters around 50 nm and lengths ranging from 500 nm to several μm. The gas sensing investigation indicates that the sensors based on NiO/ZnO heterostructured nanowires exhibit high...

While metal oxides and metal sulfides have been extensively studied for gas sensing applications, there are no extensive reports on gas sensing properties of metal diborides. Here, for the first time, we have investigated the conductometric gas sensing behavior of HfB2 nanoparticles. The HfB2 nanoparticles is synthesized via a sol-gel method and characterized using X-ray diffraction, field emission scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. The gas sensor is fabricated by drop casting the HfB2 nanoparticles on interdigitated Ag/Pd...