Curvature Optimised Plasmonic Gold-Gallium Oxide Nanocomposites for High Temperature Optical Detection of NO2

Abstract

NO2 emissions are of great concern to human health, with projected increases in consumption of its sources making it vital to develop sensors for monitoring its production in harsh environment such as combustion sources. Plasmonic nanomaterials can be extremely sensitive and hence useful in this regard, but suffer from inherent thermal stability drawbacks. The plasmonic and morphological characteristics of mixed polygon incorporated gallium oxide nanocomposites and their dependence on the changes in surrounding environment on gas exposure has been investigated here. We have detected NO2 at high temperature (800°C) by monitoring the change in intensity of the surface plasmon at the interfaces of the gold gallia nanocomposite as a function of time for different concentrations. The results obtained in this study demonstrates that it is a promising sensing material to detect oxidizing gases like NO2 .