pp. 131-136
S&M977 Research Paper of Special Issue https://doi.org/10.18494/SAM.2014.951 Published: March 27, 2014 High-Resolution Gas/Odor Sensors Using High-Frequency Quartz Crystal Microbalance [PDF] Severino Munoz-Aguirre, Azucena Lopez-Casique, Salvador Alcantara-Iniesta, Juan Castillo-Mixcoat, Georgina Beltran-Perez and Narcizo Munoz-Aguirre (Received October 1, 2013; Accepted January 20, 2014) Keywords: odor sensor, QCM, high frequency, high sensitivity
A study of gas/odor sensors fabricated with a 30 MHz quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) is presented. A problem that appears when working with high-frequency QCM sensors is that the quartz plate becomes thinner and fragile; therefore, the surface structure of the sensing film strongly affects the sensor performance. To solve this problem, thin sensing films were deposited by the ultrasonic atomizer technique. The sensor response to ethanol for different concentrations was stably measured, and a comparison with the response of 20 MHz QCM sensors was performed. It was found that the steady-state response was faster for the 30 MHz QCM sensor owing to the fact that the sensing film is thinner and the ethanol molecules can diffuse more quickly into the sensing film. Furthermore, a sensitivity improvement of approximately two times was achieved.
Corresponding author: Severino Munoz-AguirreCite this article Severino Munoz-Aguirre, Azucena Lopez-Casique, Salvador Alcantara-Iniesta, Juan Castillo-Mixcoat, Georgina Beltran-Perez and Narcizo Munoz-Aguirre, High-Resolution Gas/Odor Sensors Using High-Frequency Quartz Crystal Microbalance, Sens. Mater., Vol. 26, No. 3, 2014, p. 131-136. |