Wearable gas sensors

Wearable sensing applications have attracted much attention in recent years. The aim of the FP6 funded Proetex project is improving safety and efficiency of emergency personnel by developing integrated wearable sensor systems. This paper describes recent developments in the integration of sensing platforms into wearables for the continuous monitoring of environmentally harmful gases surrounding emergency personnel. Low-power miniature CO and CO2 sensors have been successfully integrated in a jacket collar and boot worn by emergency personnel. These sensors need to provide information about the level of gas in the surrounding environment without obstructing the activities of the wearer. This has been achieved by integrating special pockets on the jacket and boot of fire-fighters. Each sensor is attached to a sensing module for signal accommodation and data transfer. The sensor performance has been evaluated by simulation of real-life situations. These wearable gas sensors will dramatically improve personnel awareness of potential hazard and can function as a personal warning system. In this way, fire-fighter’s jacket and boot not only protect the wearer, but have a second function of providing valuable information on external hazards. The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the Science Foundation Ireland (07/CE/I1147) and the EU project FP6-2004-IST-4-026987. We also acknowledge contribution of University of Pisa (Italy), Zarlink Semiconductor (UK), and Diadora/Invicta Group (Italy)

Using a Second Order Sigma-Delta Control to Improve the Performance of Metal-Oxide Gas Sensors

Controls of surface potential have been proposed to accelerate the time response of MOX gas sensors. These controls use temperature modulations and a feedback loop based on first-order sigma-delta modulators to keep constant the surface potential. Changes in the surrounding gases, therefore, must be compensated by average temperature produced by the control loop, which is the new output signal. The purpose of this paper is to present a second order sigma-delta control of the surface potential for gas sensors. With this new control strategy, it is possible to obtain a second order zero of the quantization noise in the output signal. This provides a less noisy control of the surface potential, while at the same time some undesired effects of first order modulators, such as the presence of plateaus, are avoided. Experiments proving these performance improvements are presented using a gas sensor made of tungsten oxide nanowires. Plateau avoidance and second order noise shaping is shown with ethanol measurements.Postprint (author's final draft

Improving gas sensing properties of graphene by introducing dopants and defects: a first-principles study

The interactions between four different graphenes (including pristine, B- or N-doped and defective graphenes) and small gas molecules (CO, NO, NO2 and NH3) were investigated by using density functional computations to exploit their potential applications as gas sensors. The structural and electronic properties of the graphene-molecule adsorption adducts are strongly dependent on the graphene structure and the molecular adsorption configuration. All four gas molecules show much stronger adsorption on the doped or defective graphenes than that on the pristine graphene. The defective graphene shows the highest adsorption energy with CO, NO and NO2 molecules, while the B- doped graphene gives the tightest binding with NH3. Meanwhile, the strong interactions between the adsorbed molecules and the modified graphenes induce dramatic changes to graphene's electronic properties. The transport behavior of a gas sensor using B- doped graphene shows a sensitivity two orders of magnitude higher than that of pristine graphene. This work reveals that the sensitivity of graphene-based chemical gas sensors could be drastically improved by introducing the appropriate dopant or defect

Role of microstructure in porous silicon gas sensors for NO2_2

Electrical conductivity of porous silicon fabricated form heavily doped p-type silicon is very sensitive to NO$_2$, even at concentrations below 100 ppb. However, sensitivity strongly depends on the porous microstructure. The structural difference between sensitive and insensitive samples is independently confirmed by microscopy images and by light scattering behavior. A way to change the structure is by modifying the composition of the electrochemical solution. We have found that best results are achieved using ethanoic solutions with HF concentration levels between 13% and 15%.Comment: 3 pages, 4 figures, package SIunits require

Detection mechanism in highly sensitive ZnO nanowires network gas sensors

Metal-oxide nanowires are showing a great interest in the domain of gas sensing due to their large response even at a low temperature, enabling low-power gas sensors. However their response is still not fully understood, and mainly restricted to the linear response regime, which limits the design of appropriate sensors for specific applications. Here we analyse the non-linear response of a sensor based on ZnO nanowires network, both as a function of the device geometry and as a response to oxygen exposure. Using an appropriate model, we disentangle the contribution of the nanowire resistance and of the junctions between nanowires in the network. The applied model shows a very good consistency with the experimental data, allowing us to demonstrate that the response to oxygen at room temperature is dominated by the barrier potential at low bias voltage, and that the nanowire resistance starts to play a role at higher bias voltage. This analysis allows us to find the appropriate device geometry and working point in order to optimize the sensitivity. Such analysis is important for providing design rules, not only for sensing devices, but also for applications in electronics and opto-electronics using nanostructures networks with different materials and geometries

The electronic properties of doped single walled carbon nanotubes and carbon nanotube sensors

We present ab initio calculations on the band structure and density of states of single wall semiconducting carbon nanotubes with high degrees (up to 25%) of B, Si and N substitution. The doping process consists of two phases: different carbon nanotubes (CNTs) for a constant doping rate and different doping rates for the zigzag (8, 0) carbon nanotube. We analyze the doping dependence of nanotubes on the doping rate and the nanotube type. Using these results, we select the zigzag (8, 0) carbon nanotube for toxic gas sensor calculation and obtain the total and partial densities of states for CNT (8, 0). We have demonstrated that the CNT (8, 0) can be used as toxic gas sensors for CO and NO molecules, and it can partially detect Cl$_2$ toxic molecules but cannot detect H$_2$S. To overcome these restrictions, we created the B and N doped CNT (8, 0) and obtained the total and partial density of states for these structures. We also showed that B and N doped CNT (8, 0) can be used as toxic gas sensors for such molecules as CO, NO, Cl$_2$ and H$_2$S.Comment: 12 pages, 13 figure

Design and Modeling of Micromechanical GaAs based Hot Plate for Gas Sensors

For modern Gas sensors, high sensitivity and low power are expected. This paper discusses design, simulation and fabrication of new Micromachined Thermal Converters (MTCs) based on GaAs developed for Gas sensors. Metal oxide gas sensors generally work in high temperature mode that is required for chemical reactions to be performed between molecules of the specified gas and the surface of sensing material. There is a low power consumption required to obtain the operation temperatures in the range of 200 to 500 oC. High thermal isolation of these devices solves consumption problem and can be made by designing of free standing micromechanical hot plates. Mechanical stability and a fast thermal response are especially significant parameters that can not be neglected. These characteristics can be achieved with new concept of GaAs thermal converter.Comment: Submitted on behalf of EDA Publishing Association (http://irevues.inist.fr/EDA-Publishing

Research on VCSEL interference analysis and elimination method

Laser methane gas sensors have been increasingly accepted in coal mine safety monitoring. Most laser spectroscopic methane gas sensors are based in BFB lasers at around 1650nm. However, they suffer from high power consumption and high cost due to temperature control is required for laser diode operation at constant temperature. VCSEL lasers have offered low operation current and low power consumption when operating at non-TEC mode. However, it is found that the interference noise is critical for laser methane detection. This paper report typical results of the laser diode ripple characterization method and methods of noise reduction methods are discussed