Nitrogen incorporated zinc oxide thin film for efficient ethanol detection

Zinc oxide which is a n-type semiconducting metal oxide (SMO) has been a promising material for detecting ethanol vapor. However, pure ZnO based ethanol sensors often suffer from high working temperature, cross sensitivity towards methanol and poor stability against humidity. Here in we report improving the ethanol sensing characteristics of ZnO thin films by substitutional nitrogen doping. Ethanol sensing characteristics of the N-ZnO thin film has been compared with pure ZnO sensor over a wide range of temperature and relative humidity conditions. The N-ZnO sensor exhibits significantly large ethanol sensing response at a lower operating temperature (nbsp;99% at 225 vs 81% at 250 for ZnO), faster response time (12 s vs 33 s for ZnO), long term stability, improved resilience against humidity and selectivity towards ethanol over other VOCs. The experimental observations have been supplemented by estimating the adsorption energies of ethanol on ZnO and N-ZnO surface using density functional theory (DFT) calculations. We discuss that the microscopic origin of improved ethanol sensing of N-ZnO is related to the facile adsorption of ethanol molecules on the oxide surface which is promoted by modification of electronic properties of ZnO by the nitrogen dopant atoms.

Automated summary

We report the improvement of ethanol sensing characteristics of zinc oxide (ZnO) thin films by nitrogen doping. The nitrogen-doped ZnO sensor exhibits lower operating temperature, faster response time, long-term stability, improved resilience against humidity, and selectivity towards ethanol. Density functional theory calculations support the experimental observations by estimating the adsorption energies of ethanol on ZnO and nitrogen-doped ZnO surfaces. The enhanced ethanol sensing of nitrogen-doped ZnO is attributed to the facile adsorption of ethanol molecules on the modified oxide surface.