Oxygen sensing with individual ZnO:Sb micro-wires: effects of temperature and light exposure on the sensitivity and stability

Nanostructured ZnO has been widely investigated as a gas sensing material. Antimony is an important dopant for ZnO that catalyses its surface reactivity and thus strengthens its gas sensing capability. However, there are not enough studies on the gas sensing of antimony-doped ZnO single wires. We fabricated and characterized ZnO/ZnO:Sb core–shell micro-wires and demonstrated that individual wires are sensitive to oxygen gas flow. Temperature and light illumination strongly affect the oxygen gas sensitivity and stability of these individual wires. It was found that these micro- and nano-wire oxygen sensors at 200°C give the highest response to oxygen, yet a vanishingly small effect of light and temperature variations. The underlying physics and the interplay between these effects are discussed in terms of surface-adsorbed oxygen, oxygen vacancies and hydrogen doping.