Zinc Oxide Thick Films Properties as Gas Sensors

Osiris Escamilla Luna, Fabiola del C. Gómez Torres, Pio Sifuentes Gallardo, Angélica Silvestre López Rodríguez and Laura Lorena Díaz Flores
Universidad Juárez Autónoma de Tabasco, Av, Universidad s/n Zona de la Cultura Col. Magisterial Villahermosa Centro Tabasco CP 86040 México.
Corresponding Author: osirisescal@gmail.com

ABSTRACT
Semiconducting materials such as ZnO has have been studied extensively for gas sensing application. It has been proved that zinc oxide (ZnO) (ZnO thik film or
thin film or nanoparticle?) is a good (can we use “better” here?) gas sensitive material for detection of both reducing and oxidizing gases. In the present work, efforts
were made to synthesize ZnO nanostructure by mechanochemical route.
Zinc oxide ZnO nanoparticles were synthesised synthesized by a mechanochemical method using ZnCl2 and Na2CO3 as precursors and NaCl as a diluent. After
milling the samples were washed with deionised water to remove NaCl and heated to 400°C for approximately 2 hours. The synthesised nanoparticles were
characterised by X-ray diffraction, as well as by IR spectroscopy. (not shown in poster)
By using screen printing method, thick films of synthesized ZnO were deposited on glass substrate. A viscous screen printing paste was prepared by dispersing ZnO
powder in ethanol. Ethylcellulose was dissolved in ethanol. In order to balance the viscoelastic properties of the final paste, terpineol was added to the ZnO
dispersion. After mixing, the suspension was concentrated to a paste by evaporation of ethanol. After obtaining the paste, ZnO layers were deposited on glass
substrates. After application of all layers, the films were sintered at 450° C for 30 minutes. After deposition, the ZnO film thickness was measured by profilometry
and were characterized by X- ray diffraction ray, as well as by IR, U-V visible and Raman spectroscopies.

EXPERIMENTAL PROCEDURE

Mechanochemical Deposit Heat Treatment

Technique (Ball heat (450 °C)
Film
milling) (Screen Printing)

Mechanochemical Technique
ZnCl2 Na2CO3 NaCl
3.348 g 2.604 g 11.483 g

Screen Printing Paste

ZnO Ethanol Ethylcellulose Terpineol
0.5 g 20 ml 0.15 g 4.06 g

PRELIMINARY RESULTS
The previous results of the characterization of ZnO deposited thick films obtained, indicate formation ZnO and hence it is possible to
deposit ZnO thick films by the technique of screen printing(1). The band gap energy is found to be 3.18 eV, which is in good agreement with
earlier results, as evidenced by results from UV Vis spectroscopy(2). The approximate ZnO film thickness was 1.5 ± 0.2 µm per application.
Also It was also found that from the mechanochemical method it is possible to obtain crystalline ZnO at 450 °C, according to the results of
structural analysis of XRD. In addition, by the RAMAN spectra indicates the stable wurtzite structure of the thick films.

3.0
(101)

Lattice parameters Average grain size

a = 3.2556 A D = 32 nm
c = 5.2084 A ZnO ZnO
2.5
(100)

2.0
Absorbance (%)
E2L
Intensity (u. a.)
Intensity (a. u.)

E2H

1.5
(002)

(110)

1.0
E2H-E2

E1(TO)
(103)

A1(TO)

E1(LO)
(112)

2E2L
(102)

(201)

0.5
(200)

(004)

0.0
20 30 40 50 60 70 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000
-1 Wavelength (nm)
2 (Deg.) Raman shift (cm )
Figure 1. XRD pattern of ZnO thick films Figure 2. Raman spectra of ZnO thick films Figure 3 Absorption spectra of ZnO thick film

CONCLUSIONS
With mechanochemical technique and screen printing method it is possible to obtain crystalline thick films of ZnO crystaline. The structural
characterization by XRD showed that the ZnO obtained by this route is hexagonal wurtzite structure . From absorption spectra direct energy
band gap transition has been confirmed and it comes out to be 3.18 eV. Please write something about your future plan of ZnO gas sensor after
above work.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT The authors are thankful to of the project CONACYT INFRA-2014- 225962 and CONACYT CB_2015 256221 by for financial support.
REFERENCES (1) F. I. Lizama-Tzec, R. Garcia-Rodiguez, G. Rodriguez-Gattorno, E. J. CantoAguilar, A. G. Vega-Poot, B. E. Heredia-Cervera, J. Villanueva-Cab, N.
Morales-Flores, U. Pal and G. Oskam, 2016, Influence of morphology on the performance of ZnO-based dye-sensitized solar cells, RSC Advances.
(2) Rayees A. Zargar, Santosh Chackrabarti, Shereena Joseph, Mohd. Shahid Khan, Rizwan Husain, A.K. Hafiz , 2015, Synthesis and characterization of screen
printed ZnO films for solar cell applications, Optik.