RF Sputtered CeO2 Thin Films-Based Oxygen Sensors

Abstract

In this paper, we report the scalable, high sensitivity, fast response, and low operating temperature Cerium oxide (CeO2) thin film-based oxygen sensors by optimizing CeO2 film thickness. CeO2 thin films of thickness ranging from 90 to 340 nm have been deposited at 400 C using radio frequency (RF) magnetron sputtering on Al2O3 substrates. Ellipsometry, X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and atomic force microscopy (AFM) have been used to characterize the CeO2 films for their thickness, structural, compositional/chemical, and surface morphology properties. Gas sensors have been fabricated using CeO2 film as a sensing material and tested in an oxygen gas environment. CeO2 film with an optimum thickness of 260 nm has shown high sensitivity (12.6) and fast response time (?10 s) along with fast recovery time (15 s) at a low operating temperature of 400 C. To the best of our knowledge, these are the best values reported till date for undoped CeO2 thin film-based oxygen sensors. Furthermore, from the sensor's response, it was observed that there was no drifting from the baseline. This superior performance of CeO2 thin film-based oxygen sensor may be attributed to the combination of three factors, i.e., 1) high surface energy and reactivity due to the presence of (200) oriented CeO2 plane; 2) low resistance due to better crystallinity; and 3) perfect stoichiometry with required roughness. 2001-2012 IEEE.