A4.2 - Detection of short trace gas pulses

Event
AMA Conferences 2017
2017-05-30 - 2017-06-01
Nürnberg, Germany
Band
Proceedings Sensor 2017
Chapter
A4 - Gas Sensors I
Author(s)
T. Baur, A. Schütze, T. Sauerwald - Saarland University, Saarbrücken (Germany)
Pages
87 - 91
DOI
10.5162/sensor2017/A4.2
ISBN
978-3-9816876-4-4
Price
free

Abstract

A novel method for detection of short gas pulses at very low concentrations is presented. The approach is based on a special temperature modulation technique leading to the differential measurement of surface reduction (DSR) of a metal oxide semiconductor (MOS) gas sensor. For this method, the sensor surface is oxidized at high temperature (e.g. 400 °C). An abrupt step in temperature to e.g. 100 °C results in a nonequilibrium state with a strong excess of negative surface charges. Reactions of these surface charges with reducing gas are prevailing and lead to a very high sensitivity. Applying the method to a commercial SnO2 sensor, gas pulses down to 1 ppb s (ppb times seconds) can be detected as demonstrated for ethanol.

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