Gas-sensing properties of metal-oxide nanostructures produced by PLD

Abstract

We report the fabrication of gas sensor elements by pulsed laser deposition in air at atmospheric pressure. We focused our attention on metal-oxide semiconductors, namely, SnO2, TiO2 and MoO3 and studied the samples’ structure and morphology. The deposition technology applied leads to the formation of nanostructures composed of nanoparticles and nano-aggregates. We report preliminary results on the gas-sensing properties of the metal-oxide nanostructures. The sensors were exposed to CO, acetone and ethanol, with the TiO2 nanostructure demonstrating the highest response to CO exposure.