Applied Surface Science

Volume 357, Part B, 1 December 2015, Pages 1536-1540

High-response of amorphous ZnSnO sensors for ultraviolet and ethanol detections

QingjunJiang，ChuanjiaWu，LishaFeng，LiGong，ZhizhenYe，JianguoLu

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apsusc.2015.09.253

Abstract

Amorphous zinc-tin oxide (a-ZTO) films are fabricated using a combustion solution process. Utilization ofa-ZTO films as the novel active layers, ultraviolet (UV) and ethanol sensors are prepared for the first time. The sensor performances are strongly related to the film resistance, which is determinated by the surface O2− formed by O2 + e = O2− during UV and ethanol detections. During UV exposure, the resistivity ofa-ZTO films decreases from 6.50 × 105 Ω cm to 56.85 Ω cm, which are very sensitive towards UV (365 nm) light and the photodetectors own a sensitivity value of 650 from 0 to 30 V. While for ethanol gas, the detection regions can be in a wide range from 20 ppm to 500 ppm. The gas response can achieve a value of 31.18 at 500 ppm ethanol and good response/recovery speed (6 s and 3 s), which can be comparable with that of the common used nanomaterials. The novela-ZTO film based UV and gas sensors are very promising researches for future UV and gas sensor applications.