A Low-Temperature Micro Hotplate Gas Sensor Based on AlN Ceramic for Effective Detection of Low Concentration NO(2)

Air pollution is one of the major threats to human health. The monitoring of toxic NO(2) gas in urban air emission pollution is becoming increasingly important. Thus, the development of an NO(2) sensor with low power consumption, low cost, and high performance is urgent. In this paper, a planar structural micro hotplate gas sensor based on an AlN ceramic substrate with an annular Pt film heater was designed and prepared by micro-electro-mechanical system (MEMS) technology, in which Pt/Nb/In(2)O(3) composite semiconductor oxide was used as the sensitive material with a molar ratio of In:Nb = 9:1. The annular thermal isolation groove was designed around the heater to reduce the power consumption and improve the thermal response rate. Furthermore, the finite element simulation analysis of the thermal isolation structure of the sensor was carried out by using ANSYS software. The results show that a low temperature of 94 °C, low power consumption of 150 mW, and low concentration detection of 1 to 10 ppm NO(2) were simultaneously realized for the Nb-doped In(2)O(3)-based gas sensor. Our findings provide a promising strategy for the application of In(2)O(3)-based sensors in highly effective and low concentration NO(2) detection.