Alcohol sensing characteristics of indium doped zno thin films

Indium doped ZnO thin films are deposited on quartz substrates using sol-gel spin coating technique. The structural characteristics of the deposited films are studied by x-ray diffraction (XRD) and field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM). The sensing properties of the films are investigated at different concentrations of ethanol and butanol by varying the operating temperature. The response% and response time are found to be 32% and 6 sec respectively, by exposing the film to 500 ppm of ethanol at 200oC which is quite encouraging. Also the recovery of the sensor is quite fast. This indicates that the grown films have the potential for its application as high performance and low power consuming sensors. The selectivity of the sensors is also studied using pattern recognition analysis.