ZnO Nanowires in Surface-Acustic-Wave Sensors

Gas and liquid sensors development involve more and more nanotechnologies in developing their active surfaces. Nanostructures with controlled morphologies and structural properties are more and more used for building such... [ view full abstract ]

Gas and liquid sensors development involve more and more nanotechnologies in developing their active surfaces. Nanostructures with controlled morphologies and structural properties are more and more used for building such devices, and their properties control became critical issues in the fabrication processes. Vapor-Liquid-Solid (VLS) technique is one of the approaches in growing nanostructures (nanowires) with controlled morphologies and structural properties. Combining this technique with the pulsed-laser deposition method, we have grown oxide (ZnO) nanowires on the surface-acoustic-wave (SAW) sensors. We have investigated nanostructure morphological and surface patterning influences over SAW sensors performances and we found significant improvements in sensor response on the nanostructures morphologies, with important decreasing of the threshold measurable concentration in comparison with thin film performances. Surface pattern growing is another way of noise reduction and sensibility improvements. Comparisons between different nanostructure patterns and structure morphologies and thin film surfaces are presented and exemplified on the hydrogen and deuterium detection.

Acknowledgment:
This work was supported by a grant of the Romanian National Authority for Scientific Research, CNCS – UEFISCDI, project number PN-II-IDPCE- 2011-3-0522 and LAPLAS 3, Cod: PN 09 39.