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The designed preparation of pure and Au-loaded SnO 2 hollow multilayered nanosheets for CO detection has been realized via a rational combination of different purposeful multi-step synthetic route. The synthetic step-dependent shape and structure evolution has been investigated and the formation mechanism for the unique hollow nanosheets is also discussed. The characterized results confirm that flowerlike SnO 2 nanosheets with a polycrystalline rutile structure are assembled from hexagonal mesoporous and multilayered walls, which can further be subdivided into SnO 2 nanoparticles as structural subunits. Furthermore, gas sensors based on the as-prepared pure and Au-loaded SnO 2 have also been fabricated. The Au-loaded SnO 2 hollow nanosheets show significantly lower working temperature, faster response-recovery and improved selectivity to CO in comparison with that of pure SnO 2 . Besides structural merits including hollow and easily penetrated multilayered walls, which facilitate the transport rate and augment the adsorption quantity of gas molecule, the significant improvement of the sensing properties is also attributed to the catalytic effect of Au. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: A microstructure sensor based on hierarchically porous ZnO nanosheet (NS) thin films has been achieved by using a facile two-step solution phase method. The transparent ZnO seed-layer covered on both the conducting electrodes and the insulating SiO2 spacer regions acts as lattice-matched template, on which the assembly of ZnO NS thin films has been subsequently completed via a facile solvothermal process. The phase purity, morphology, and structure of the as-prepared NSs are investigated, and the results reveal that ZnO NSs, grown vertically on the substrate, exhibit hierarchically porous nanostructure with subunits of nanoparticles. The gas-sensing properties exhibit not only high response to CO with the response time of 25s, but also low cross response to common interference gases at the operating temperature of 300°C. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]