Chemiresistive gas sensing characteristics of cobalt oxide thin films.

We report synthesis of 100 nm thick cobalt oxide films - prepared by electron-beam evaporation of Co onto quartz (Q- films) and c-plane sapphire substrate (S- films) followed by oxygen annealing. Films have been characterized for their structure and morphology by using X-ray Diffraction (XRD) and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). The prepared films have been investigated for their chemiresistive gas sensing characteristics for a host of test gases (CH4, CO, NO2, Cl2, NH3 and H2S) as a function of operating temperature (between 50 and 350°C) and gas concentration (3-30 ppm). We demonstrate that both Q and S-films are highly selective to H2S at an operating temperature of 250°C. However it has been observed that films prepared on sapphire show much less base resistance drift as compared to the films on quartz substrate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]