Sol-Gel Derived Titania Films And Their Potential Application As Gas Sensor

Abstract

Today there is a great deal of interest in the development of gas sensors for various applications like monitoring of toxic gases, detection in oil reservoirs, mines, homes etc. Solid-state gas sensors have many advantages over the conventional analytical methods and hence are widely used. Amongst them, semiconducting metal-oxides based sensors are popular due to many advantages like low cost, small size, high sensitivity and long life. The present thesis reports a detailed work of TiO2 (Titania) thin film fabrication based on sol-gel method, study of their crystallization behavior and surface morphology, and characterizing them for alcohol sensing properties Sol-gel method is a wet chemical technique with many advantages over the conventional methods and offers a high degree of versatility to modify the film properties. Titania thin films were made with titanium isopropoxide as the precursor and ethanol and isopropanol as the solvents. Also effect of surfactants(PEG and CTAB) on the sol properties and film properties have experimentally examined. A in-house gas sensor testing setup has been designed and fabricated to characterize the sensors. Sensors with three different electrode configurations and also two different electrode material have been tested. The electrode geometry and material play a significant role on the sensing behavior and results for the same have been discussed.