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Mesoporous sieve structured ITO-based thin films for enhanced formaldehyde detection

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Abstract

Porous-structured materials are potential candidates for gas sensor applications because of their large specific surface areas, high pore volumes, unblocked pores, and excellent thermal stabilities. Tin (Sn) is an excellent catalytic material for improving the active sites on the material surface and plays a crucial role in gas-sensing measurements. In this study, indium oxide (IO) and tin-doped indium oxide (ITO) films with different concentrations of Sn were deposited into In2O3 using the spray pyrolysis method. Various characterisation techniques have been used to determine the structural, morphological, optical, chemical, and gas-sensing properties. XRD studies revealed the polycrystalline cubic structure of the deposited films with a (222) crystal orientation, and the crystallite size increased with increasing Sn concentration. TEMand BET surface area investigations revealed the highly porous nanostructured nature with large pore volumes of the deposited thin films. The XPS and PL emission spectra indicated that the films' chemisorbed oxygen and oxygen vacancy defects and these were estimated using Smakula’s formula. A significant impact of Sn doping on formaldehyde sensing properties were observed. The ITO thin film deposited with 6 wt % of tin exhibited the best sensing characteristics at room temperature.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank the Head of the Department of Physics, Osmania University, Hyderabad, for providing the necessary experimental facilities to carry out this work. DSG is thankful to UGC-New Delhi, India, for providing financial assistance in the form of NET-JRF during the tenure of this work. One of the authors MVRR, sincerely thanks the science and engineering research board (SERB), New Delhi, for providing the necessary financial support for a research project with the file number (file no.: EMR/2017/002651) to carry out the present work. And also express sincere thanks to Prof. K. N. Reddy, Hon’ble vice-chancellor JNTU(H), Kukatpally, for his continuous support during the current work. One of the authors PNR would like to express his gratitude to UGC-DAE-CSR for providing experimental facilities to carry out this work under CSR–IC–MSRSR-21/CRS- 229/2017–18/1310 project.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Thin Films and Nanomaterials Research Laboratory, Department of Physics, Osmania University, Hyderabad, 500007, India

    Sunil Gavaskar Dasari & M. V. Ramana Reddy

  2. Nanosensor Research Laboratory, Department of Physics, CMR Technical Campus, Hyderabad, 501401, India

    Pothukanuri Nagaraju

  3. Department of Physics, Anurag University, Telangana State, Hyderabad, 500088, India

    Vijayakumar Yelsani

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  1. Sunil Gavaskar Dasari
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  2. Pothukanuri Nagaraju
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  3. Vijayakumar Yelsani
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  4. M. V. Ramana Reddy
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Contributions

SGD: writing—investigation, preparation of the original draft, writing. NP: formal analysis, data curation, review and editing. VY: methodology. MVRR: contributed as the supervisor and reviewed the work.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Pothukanuri Nagaraju or M. V. Ramana Reddy.

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Dasari, S.G., Nagaraju, P., Yelsani, V. et al. Mesoporous sieve structured ITO-based thin films for enhanced formaldehyde detection. J Mater Sci: Mater Electron 33, 23447–23467 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10854-022-09106-8

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