{"id":5993,"date":"2012-07-18T22:26:23","date_gmt":"2012-07-18T22:26:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mtlsites.mit.edu\/annual_reports\/2012\/?p=5993"},"modified":"2012-07-18T22:26:23","modified_gmt":"2012-07-18T22:26:23","slug":"the-role-of-hierarchical-morphologies-in-the-high-performance-gas-sensing-of-cuo-based-chemiresistors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mtlsites.mit.edu\/annual_reports\/2012\/the-role-of-hierarchical-morphologies-in-the-high-performance-gas-sensing-of-cuo-based-chemiresistors\/","title":{"rendered":"The Role of Hierarchical Morphologies in the High- performance Gas Sensing of CuO-Based Chemiresistors"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gas sensors are essential in the monitoring, control, and reduction of harmful emissions in the environment [1<\/a>] <\/sup>.\u00a0 Conductometric gas sensors based on semiconducting metal oxides are advantageous in many applications due to high sensitivity, manufacturability, and small size.\u00a0 However, there are a number of drawbacks, including difficulty in control over the semiconductor\/substrate interface, high power consumption, and reduced selectivity at high temperatures (300-400\u02daC) required for operation [2<\/a>] <\/sup> [3<\/a>] <\/sup>. The development of gas sensors with innovative designs and advanced functional materials has attracted considerable scientific interest due to their great technological potential [4<\/a>] <\/sup>. This work presents new insight towards the development of high-performance p-type semiconductor gas sensors.\u00a0 Gas sensor test devices, based on copper (II) oxide (CuO) with innovative and unique urchin-like structures, were prepared by a microwave-assisted synthesis method. An assembly of urchin-like structures was found to be most effective for hydrogen detection in the range of parts-per-billion (300 ppb) at low temperatures (200\u02daC). These results show that morphology plays an important role in the gas sensing performance of p-type semiconducting CuO gas sensors.<\/p>\n\n\t\t